Episode 360

Sort and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences Listener discretion is advised And when you guys showed me the picture of her I Believe the sexual stuff, but I didn't want to believe that he had done anything equal to her I'm like, no, what if she what if he did this stuff? Fine Some of the stories we tell here on Sort and scale will make you sick I'll tug at your heartstrings. They'll change your whole perspective when humanity They're the ones you can't get over the ones you can't really shake and they stay with you for a long time The story we're about to tell you is one of them This is part one of a two-part series. Let's go You 9-1-1. What's the location of your emergency? The call is coming out of Kissamie, Florida and a quiet suburban pocket near Hunters Creek middle school police fire a medical Police possibly have a reporting a missing child. And is she white black or Hispanic? She's white. Okay, and 30 blonde hair blue eyes Okay, hold on with me here. Okay, and then how long has it been those since you guys have last seen her since this morning? She was dropped off at school this morning and apparently she never showed up. We called Everyone we knew no one came to her. She was left seen at The church next to Hunters Creek middle school. I think it's called peace church. I'm not sure if these facts are dressed She was dropped off that morning just steps away from the school But she never made it inside By that afternoon no one had seen her not her friends not her teachers not a single person At the school She was dropped off then just disappeared her name was Madeleine Soto and she was just 13 years old This was her best friend She came to the school and was the middle year and fourth grade. She was like the new kids. So like everybody comes to pick on And stuff. She was in a different class to me. She got picked on a lot by people like They're like nobody really liked and stuff and then one day I Like went up to her and I was like, "Hey, what's your name?" and then we got to know each other. Ever since then we've just been best friends As best friends, she and Maddie talked every day Like every single day. She texted me every morning. I wake up and I always get texts from her unless she But usually I thought it was fishy yesterday when she didn't text me at all because usually even if she doesn't go to school that day She texted me like the night or the day I went to wake up early just to like text me like "Hey, I'm not going to school." And she didn't yesterday, but I didn't think anything other except that she'd like, "Oh, she's like slurped in for something." That morning, February 26th, 2024 was supposed to be routine A ride to school may be breakfast on the way It was a kind of morning. You don't think twice about until something goes horribly wrong That morning her mother's boyfriend Stefan Sterns drove her to school Stephanie, she was always on the call with him. She loved him They were really close They left earlier than usual. They had time to spare and talked about stopping for breakfast that McDonald's But she changed her mind as little kids do She was sleepy But she also just wanted to get to school early to hang out with her friends Instead of waiting in the inseparable car line, she asked to be dropped off about a block away She would walk the rest of the way to find her friends Apparently, no matter who was taking her to school, Maddie preferred to be dropped off in the near vicinity This was usually at the church across the street where a lot of parents dropped off their kids to avoid the long lines That morning the car pulled over Maddie got out and started walking They're going to the pool to double check and everything, but from what we know she wasn't there So they could be back in two because it's right next to it That's fine. So it is at least one of you remain there though to meet with an officer. That's more than fine, okay? Yeah, I'll be here. I'll be here Okay, then. All right. Thank you so much, Dan And I'll go ahead and let you go. We'll be out there as quickly as we can, okay? When someone goes missing every second matters Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how much you want a limited resource like law enforcement If there's no cops available, there's no cops available What do you expect after years of demonizing law enforcement? All cops are bastards you say Yeah, that has a negative but opposite effect duh Police are medical. Hi, I'm I called. I felt like I was a reporting a missing child I just want to show how long the cops are gonna take me here. Okay. Hold on. Let me open up the call Let's see the cost of currently pending. They have the deputies just spun out there that we don't have any available deputies We still have to call up the holding Okay, so no one's on their way yet. Not yet. No Does it take long for them to respond to the call? If there's a big emergency in the area and There's nobody there's no units available. They put the call on hold But as soon as one becomes available, they respond to the next pressing call. I'll go ahead and update them for the information All right, thank you because this happened very recently, so we just want to go everyone here At the same time her family started calling the school reaching out to teachers to see if anyone had seen her But no one had What's going on? They need to be far medical No, it's not a medical issue. We have a missing child since this morning. We already called three times and the police didn't show up yet I see it is a way for deputy to respond They haven't they haven't come here yet. I'm worried about see it. I'm waiting for a deputy to respond They're waiting for a deputy to respond. Yes, ma'am And how long what do we need to wait? It's a child missing. I understand it, ma'am But I'm just not able to give out ETA. I don't know when they'll be there. So how long do we need to wait? This is an emergency We have information, but they're just trying to get someone as soon as possible. So this is not informed for you guys. Really? But we are very busy in the area of the gunner said they'll be there soon if they can, okay? They didn't just call 911 once they had to call three times The first call came in at around 4.43 p.m then again at 5.16 and Then another one at 7.21 It took officers on those three hours to arrive and they didn't get there until 7.37 p.m Deputy logs show the call sat waiting because no deputies were available Units were tied up with other emergencies and this one had to wait its turn But before you blame dispatchers understand that the people answering those calls weren't the ones heading out to search They were taking information and waiting for someone in the field to clear They did their jobs correctly by the book exactly as instructed Maddie's mother was later told there were other missing children that day Seems like an epidemic, right? Resources were stretched then In fact nearly 1000 children are reported missing in the United States every day That works out to about one child every 90 seconds or roughly 350,000 children under 18 each year Think about that for just a second That's roughly the capacity of the Indianapolis motor speedway So yeah, an Indianapolis motor speedway is worth a children goes missing every year But to Maddie's parents family and friends statistics didn't really matter at the moment This was serious and urgent This was their own daughter An entire day had now passed with no one seeing Maddie Does she have a cell phone that she might keep on her person? She does it she had when she looked at home Curvingly today. Okay. It was no surprise that Maddie left her phone at home This was a common occurrence and it wasn't just because she was forgetful Okay, is she diagnosed with any medical mental conditions at all? I know she takes medication for ADHD and I think that I'm pretty sure that's it At 7.37 pm, officers pulled into the condo complex in Kissimmee, where Maddie lived with her mother, Jennifer Soto. Also in the home was Jennifer's boyfriend, Stefan Sterns, who was frequently there despite an on and off again relationship. The unit itself was shared, with rooms rented out to other women, and the condo was owned by Maddie's grandfather. It was a crowded living arrangement with multiple people coming and going, and limited space inside the home. By the time Davidee's got there, that evening both Jennifer and Stefan were there, answering questions and helping officers piece together, the last known details from that morning. Officers started with the basics, documenting what Maddie was wearing, and establishing a clear timeline. Like I said, an epidemic, especially when Disney World is in your backyard. So she was supposed to be dropped off her school, then make it to school. I went to pick her up from school today, and she never came out, they announced it over the speaker, and I'm just like maybe she walked here because sometimes she'll walk here to this office. I came here, nothing, I went back to the school, they were closed. I got a notice, an email from the school saying she was absent, but I also messaged her teacher, and he looked at her entire tenet today and saw that she was completely not at school today either. So she never made it. Okay. What's her name? Madeleine. M-A-D-E-O-I-N-E. M-A-D-E-L. I-N-E. Last name? So no. So T-O. S-O-O-T-O? Yeah. Data birth. February 22, 2011. February 27, 2002. Oh, sorry, 22nd. 2009. 2011. Just 13th birthday. He said it quietly, but Stefan just pointed out that Maddie had just turned 13. In fact, just the day before, a Sunday, the family had a birthday party. Her mother Jennifer and her mother's boyfriend Stefan were not there, but her best friend was. But on Monday evening, back at the scene, officers needed to know what Maddie was wearing when she was last seen, so they talked to her mom and Stefan. "Green hoodies?" "Green hoodies," white cross, white cross, blue or black pants. Black shorts. Black shorts? Okay. Black shorts. All right. Do you know what she has? Like, friends in the area? She does, but she doesn't know where they live. She doesn't know what she's doing. Okay. I asked all of them. Yeah, more than I can do it. Okay. Is this like, does she like have any places that you guys know that she'll usually be at? Any friends house? Any places that, like, she has to hang out? Typically. No. Typically? No, okay. Yeah. Wait. A hundred and ten pounds? A hundred and ten. A hundred. A hundred. Here, color. Blond. Blond, like that. Okay. Eye color. Blue. Does she have any markings on her? Like, any scars on her? I just think the beauty mark on her face. On her face. On the face. Like below the nose. You know, like, right in that area there. It's very distinctive. You'd know it if you saw it. While one officer was talking to Maddie's parents, another was speaking with staff at the church, where she was dropped off that morning. Surveillance showed a child sitting in a parking lot for about ten minutes before getting up and walking away. After that, the trail disappeared. At that point, investigators were still working through possibilities, including one that seemed plausible. That Maddie may have left on her own. It's possible that she came here and sat in the parking lot for a while. It's blurry video, but it looks like a, I don't know if it's a child sitting right there and she's sitting. The people here said that they were adamant they teased her on the property. But, as I said, it's a blurry video and I don't see her getting into anybody's car in the video. I see you're sitting on property for, you're going to take ten minutes and then walking off property. I don't know which way she went from there. The video was blurred, he said. But clearly, he showed a child lingering for a bit and then walking away. Could it have been Maddie? There were signs, even messages and comments about wanting to leave, about going off on her own and living in the woods when she turned thirteen. By the woods? Why? Thirteen? You may ask? Who knows? But when we all like to just go off the grid from time to time. Regardless, this half-baked plan was something she had confided about with her friend. We were walking around the bus loop and she was like, she was talking about a gator and then she was like, you know, it'd be like so cold to do and I was like, what? She was like, if we like, run into the woods, like, you know that trail where I'm scoping, I'll think, yeah, she was like, you'd be so cold to go there and just like, go to a little house. And I was like, the woods, like, with like animals and stuff and I was like, where are you going to get this, like, wooden stuff to go to this house? And she was like, I don't know, I figure it out. And I thought she was joking and stuff because she kind of like, it's milder if you did it. So I thought she was joking, but I didn't think her seriously. And then when I found that she was missing, that popped into my mind and that's what went out. Her saying if she were to run away, go into the woods and find a place and stay there. If this were true, if she really had planned to leave, then where did she go? He dropped her out of the black way and drove away. Okay. Did she have a motorcycle? No. But it wasn't just like any other morning. On any other morning, Matty would have been safe in school all day. But she wasn't. She would have made it home after school like every other day. But she didn't. Whether Matty ran away or something far worse happened, the truth was that she wasn't just missing. She had vanished. She had just turned into a teenager and now her family feared she would never make it to adulthood. She lived in Kissimmee, Florida with her mother, Jennifer Soto, in a condo complex. On the morning of February 26th, 2024, she was dropped off just a short distance from the school yard. A walk she had made before and won that at the time didn't seem unusual. But that morning, she never made it inside. Hours passed before anyone realized something was wrong. Her family made calls to the school, then to 9-1-1. At the time deputies arrived that evening, Matty had already been missing for hours and no one could say where she had gone after getting out of the car. At first, there were explanations, maybe she left on her own, maybe she wandered off. She had allegedly made comments about wanting to leave, about going off into the woods when she turned 13. Matty lived with her mother and she also spent time with her grandmother. From the time she was about 6, her mother's boyfriend was also in the picture. Jennifer and Stefan were in an on-again, off-again relationship for years. For the majority of that time, they lived under the same roof. According to Jennifer and other family members, Stefan was like a dad to Matty, and they had a great relationship. But she also had a great relationship with her biological dad and her sister who lived miles away. If she didn't take off to live in the woods, maybe she took off on a bus or plane to see them. Her friend remembered her preoccupation with getting money for her birthday. "Once I took my 13, I'm going to leave this house and never come back. Why 13?" "Because I think, because she was back, because I said that I can't wait to my birthday and she was like, are you having a birthday party?" I said, no, and she was like, oh, I get all the money, like $500 or something. I'm a birthday, you know, like that's extra much money. And I was like, yeah, I get money, but not like that. And I don't really like having birthday parties the last birthday party I had so much to draw on. And she was like, oh, okay. But she would always talk about getting money. money for her birthday and I didn't give her money and I already had given her a gift I bought it to school. She kind of got mad at me getting money and I was like I spent money on this and physically give you any money though and then when we also got there I was like how much presents did you get and then she was like I barely got any money yet like I'm kind of mad because like I won't want more money. I think he was way to turn 13 that way if you could get all the money and go. She got sister and sister her dad is in Washington DC and I think her sister is too. Her sister are close. Missing her biological dad and sister weren't the only reasons Maddie may have taken off without telling anyone. Her friend said she didn't always get along with her mom and she had ADHD and other challenges. Based on what I know I think she kind of just wanted to be free and kind of just not live under like her. The word mom or mom's rules was redacted but that's a reasonable inference that she didn't necessarily want to live under her mom's rules. She had just turned into a teenager. When investigators took a closer look at what actually happened that morning, Maddie's disappearance seemed less like a troubled teenager looking for escape and more like a vulnerable girl who may have been abducted. On the morning of Maddie's disappearance Steph and Drover to school. This wasn't unusual. In fact, they had a routine for the days he took her to school that included stopping at McDonald's. But that day was different. Maddie was more lethargic and slept the whole way. She refused breakfast twice. She woke up around 7, 7, 15 somewhere around there. She's an early start for us but we talked about getting McDonald's breakfast beforehand. So we want to make good time. We did make good time. We got out the door maybe 7.30, 7.45-ish maybe. Got over to that area. She was asleep in the car most of the time. Just snoozing till we got there. We got to McDonald's or close to McDonald's. I said he's still on it. It wasn't interested in the McDonald's anymore, so we continued on. And she wanted to be dropped off a little down the ways from the school. She's got this phase that she's been into lately where she's very particular about what car she seemed getting out of in front of the school. I get it. It's an image thing. But that was sometime probably between 8, 28, 40-ish somewhere in there. It was along the stretch of the road that on the right side has all the communities on it. Before you get to the overpass, you can see the overpass from where it was. So it was on that side on that stretch of road. That's where I dropped her off. She said she was going to go wait for her friends. I asked if that was going to be okay. She said it's fine. Kids get dropped off early enough as it is since not totally unusual for that to happen. So it's not usually that early that I dropped her off. She school runs every once in a while for her. Jennifer was happy to have Stefan in her life. He was a huge help tour. He was able to give insight to Jennifer about Maddie's ADHD because he too had ADHD. According to Stefan, his ADHD was severe. But Jennifer had issues of her own, including bipolar disorder, which she was meditating for. Typically, the medicine would help regulate her moods and her sleep. But at times, she'd forget to take it. Her dose needed to be adjusted. She often didn't sleep well and appreciated that Stefan and Maddie had a solid father daughter like relationship. And he could pick up the slack. In this next clip, take particular notice of how she's explaining her behavior that night. As if she's trying to explain away a question that hasn't been I got home around 10-30. I started getting ready for bed myself. I started to keep eating and taking my meds after taking my meds. When I went to take my meds, I realized, "Oh my god, I forgot to take my Saturday night's meds," which is why I felt so beard, so abnormal and not myself someday. While I was at work, everyone at work noticed I was acting different and not being myself, but I couldn't smile in front of the guest. I felt this wave of depression that I hadn't felt in years. It was my bipolar symptoms coming up again, but I've been meditating myself for the whole of this time. So Sunday you took your meds, what meds, if you don't mind me asking, what meds do you take? How does it put you to sleep deep? Does it help you fall asleep? Does it help regulate you? What kind of happens when you take the meds? They do all of the above. They make me sleepy. They help me stay asleep, and they help me function. Some stable whole day. They only work well if I've got a good night's sleep, and if I be in with them the night before when I take them, or the night I take them. The medication is called GIDA, a generic brand that's called Zip Brasadone. I took my meds, and then I told them to start getting ready for bed. I started heading upstairs and getting ready because it was already almost 11 o'clock and it's past 4 am. She needs to go to sleep. Even by her own account, when Jennifer did take her medication, it didn't just help her sleep. It knocked her out. She described feeling groggy, disoriented, and sometimes not fully aware of what had happened the night before. Sleep was very important to Jennifer in general, so the next morning she remembered Stefan coming into a room to get the dog and taken for a walk before he took Maddie to school because she needed to sleep in and didn't want to take her. Stefan confirmed that he took the dog for a walk and then he said he and Maddie had an early start. Other than Maddie being excessively sleepy and not wanting McDonald's, this was a typical trip to school. Then she just dropped off the radar. Dropping off the radar wouldn't be as easy for Maddie as it would for other students. Her teachers were paying attention. She had an IEP, individualized education programmer, special ed, as it used to be known. She has been in my class all year round. She's always very sweet and she struggles a bit. I mean, all my kids' kinds of clits are struggles. She was on my door decorating team. She was actually chosen to be my student of the week from two weeks ago for helping us win our door decorating competition with our friends. We had been reading a book a couple months ago and it had kissing in it and it was a graphic novel and she was like scandalized that there was a kissing scene. Seventh grade was the year sex education was introduced in this school system, so it wasn't surprising the kids would make a big deal about a graphic novel. But she also remembered something Maddie's friends told her after Maddie went missing. She had just been made student of the week. She was quiet, she struggled and she was happy about her birthday. These were descriptions, officers heard over and over. But they also heard that Maddie had a lot of anxiety, not just typical worries, but panic attacks. This is the school counselor. When she has come to me, it's often been those feelings of panic. She's come to me in the middle of class or during lunchtime, just feeling really panicked, kind of heavy breathing, feeling really overwhelmed. And when we've had our conversations about what's going on, what's making you feel this way, I've gotten responses saying what's my anxiety, sometimes I don't know, I'm just really overstimulated with all the noise and the cafeteria. But she also talked about things being stressful at home. Her mother was usually the focal point. And when I pressed about that, it seemed to be things along the lines of well, she gets upset that I'm forgetful or that I don't clean my room the way she wants me to. And we talked about what that does to affect her and she says yelling that makes me get overstimulated and then I can't respond to her in a way that she wants me to. So we discussed strategies for kind of calming herself down. No one at school was raising any real red flags. A lot of this seemed pretty normal for a seventh grade girl with hormones and ADHD. She also has an IEP. Okay, so do you think it may be? Well, I always thought that it was partly because she struggles with learning. So I always thought, you know, because that struggle with learning also are a little bit withdrawn and have a hard time focusing. So yeah. There were struggles. A mom who had her own mental health issues, a broken family, ADHD, but none of it really pointed to a child who was about to disappear. But investigators had to consider every possibility. Whether she left on her own, met someone or was picked up along the way. None of these explanations held up against the evidence. There was no footage of Maddie getting out of a car. No camera capturing the moment she was dropped off. The only video investigators could locate came from the area near the church, showing a figure believed to be Maddie, sitting briefly before getting up and walking away. After that, the trail stops. There were no more sightings, no confirmed movement. And no indication she'd made it any farther towards the school. There is no evidence that she ever met anyone. No sign that she left the area. And nothing to suggest she went anywhere at all. The timeline doesn't extend. It just comes to a dead end. The last person to see Maddie was Stefan. So detectives had no choice but to dig deeper into his version of what happened. They're saying, OK. Later out, have a good day. Love you. Thanks, love you too. When they turned around, I was driving away. I was watching her in my RV and hearing to make sure that she was phone where she was to go. And she was moving in that direction but she was rummaging around in her backpack or something. When I assumed it was probably headphones or something like that, but I don't know that she forgot her phone here. So she made me rummaging for her phone. But she was still kind of making her way towards that direction. So it looked OK and stuck in the other day. I mean, I just continued on. After dropping Maddie off, Stefan tells investigators he left the area and went to a nearby vape shop. But it wasn't opened yet. So he says he returned home briefly. Jennifer was just getting up because she had slept in. They hung out for a bit and then he went back to the vape shop once it opened. From there, his account becomes harder to follow. He describes driving along Highway 192, stopping at multiple places, including a comic shop and a target. So yeah, that's what an adult male is doing on a typical weekday, shopping for comic books and weed. Maybe stopping by target. We are so cooked as a society. Then at some point, during that time, he says he got a flat tire. He pulled over and changed it using a spare. He explained apologetically that the flat tire caused him to fall behind. So he missed the opportunity to pick Maddie up from school with Jennifer as they had planned. On its own, none of that stood out as unusual. Running errands, losing track of time, even getting a flat tire. These are the kind of things that happen to everyone every day. But it created a stretch of time that wasn't clearly accounted for, a window where his movements relied almost completely on his own recollection. And his recollection wasn't great, because remember, he has ADHD also. So far, no footage had confirmed where he was during that period. No independent witnesses placed him at any of those stops. As cooperative as Stefan was, he gave a series of locations, times, and explanations that became harder to pin down the more they tried. It doesn't make sense. I apologize for that. Trying to help you out the best that I can, but it's-- Right, so if you drop her off her on 8.40, let's say, give her 10 minutes. You make it to the shop around 9, the smoke shop. And you sit there and wait for a couple minutes for it to open. You said you waited for maybe 5 or 10 minutes, right? Does it make sense that you're still there at 10 o'clock? I was there at 10 o'clock. OK, so what did you do before that? I dropped her off. And I made my way over, not a direct route, but I made my way over there. Did you stop anywhere on your way to the smoke shop? No. No thing so? Do you have problems with your memory that you can't recall what you did? I'm extremely ADHD, I'm sorry. And so just details start to get fuzzy after a while, even the times I'm giving you are my best guestimates here. Didn't have my phone with me at the time, so I wasn't aware of exactly what time-- There's no time on your car? transpiring. There probably is, but it's not my car. It's not my parents' car. ADHD, no phone, unfamiliar car. I mean, ADHD is a real thing. Don't get me wrong. And it does affect memory and the ability to recall details or keep track of time. All of those things. But it may also be a really good cover for someone who's trying to hide something. And that's when the investigation started to shift away from what Stefan said and towards what could actually be verified. He gave the investigators every little detail, but he couldn't account for big gaps of time. And while Jennifer corroborated his version of events, she was also unable to explain gaps of time, probably because she was asleep, or at the doctor's office, maybe getting medicines, readjusted. So investigators turned to the one thing that doesn't rely on memory or even coherence. His phone. His phone showed him going home, leaving again, and doubling back in a pattern that doesn't match the simple errands he described. Which should have been a simple morning became a series of trips and changes in direction. He couldn't really explain. Jennifer corroborated Stefan's morning. Pretty sure he called me around 10, 18. What do you call you for? To let me know. God. He didn't go to McDonald's plan. He had asked her multiple times if you wanted to stop in McDonald's, because that was the plan the night before. That they were going to wake up early. He was going to take her to McDonald's due like a special McDonald's breakfast, and then drop her off at school early, because she wanted to get there a little early. But on his way to school, she was very sleepy, and wanted to sleep in the car. And she said she did not want to do McDonald's. She just wanted to be dropped off. Also to let me know that he left his phone at home, because I had called him multiple times in the end of the day. He left his phone at home by accident. He had went to the vape shop, but they didn't open on time. So he had waited for quite a while in front of the vape shop. They didn't open, so he left and came back and we hung out a little bit. Then I think he left again to the vape shop to go buy what he needed. OK. Detectives already knew something they weren't telling Jennifer. Something they had already discussed with Stefan. His car was caught on camera with a passenger in it for longer than he admitted, including turning around, in route, to circle back to the apartment because he forgot a key fob. When you came back to get your key fob, what did you do when you got here? We inside. Got key fob. We came back out again. OK, where did you park? Right up here, I think. OK. How long would you say you were inside your apartment for? Literally long enough to run in, grab the fob, and come back out, so-- OK, and then what did you do? Most. What did you do when you came back out? I got back in the car and went back on the morning mission. OK. The camera has you in the complex for 12 minutes. Does that seem about right? Yeah, coming into the complex, driving around, parking, getting the fob, coming back out, sounds about right. OK. And then you leave, what time would you say you dropped her off at this school, or down at this school, but in the area? My estimate was sometime between 820 and 840. Yeah. OK, the camera has you leaving the complex at 831. 831? OK, so it must have been closer to 840 then. Around about, I think. OK, so let's say you dropped her off at 840. We don't see her car coming back south until 10 o'clock in the morning. So what are you doing between 840 and 10 o'clock? Cruising around a little bit. OK, but I asked you earlier, what you were doing, and you said you were there for like 5 or 10 minutes, and then you came back home. Yeah, I went to the smoke shop, like I said. But I was probably-- I may have been re-endering around the area, but I made my way home. OK, but I'm asking you earlier, right? And even the first time we talked to you, you're not telling us that you're just cruising the area, you're coming home. So I need to be able to explain to my supervisors why there's such a time gap. Stefan tried to make the return to the apartment sound routine. He forgot a key fob, he said. So he doubled back, ran inside and came right back out. But investigators were already seeing cracks in that story. The stop took longer than he claimed. The timeline didn't hold. And while he was back at the complex, surveillance caught him doing some things, things that made the forgot-my-fob explanation seem. maybe. well, like a cover. Did she go inside with you? No, she was in the car, so she was asleep. Where in the car? Passing your seat. The front seat. Correct. Okay, does she at any point go in the back of the vehicle, like in the back seat? No. So she was in the front the whole time? Uh-huh. Awake or asleep? She was asleep. Okay. She was calm down. We had gotten hurt. How was she positioned in the front seat? The lean back in the seat. It's kind of knocked out and happened. Where was her head in relation to the seat? Against the seat, I think, against it. Was the seat leaning back or.? The seat was leaning back. Actually, it leaned the seat back so that she could be replying. Those questions seem kind of like who cares, questions, right? This all took place before he dropped her off at school, according to Stefan. They had been up early. Maddie was tired. She slept on the way. She didn't want McDonald's. They were making good time and he realized he had forgotten the key fops, so he just drove right back to the complex. She was still asleep in the passenger seat. The problem is, well, the problem for Stefan, was that detectives weren't just looking at the one stop back at the complex. The more they reviewed the surveillance footage, the more they realized. The same car Stefan was driving kept appearing. Different locations, different times, but every time the passenger looked exactly the same. Her position never changed. She wasn't sleeping. She was already dead. Stefan was driving around very much of the morning with a corpse in the passenger seat. Trying to pass her off as sleeping. Maddie never made it to school that day because she never got out of the car. On the morning of her 13th birthday party, Maddie Soto would have started another day in her life. School, friends, homework. Instead she disappeared and never made it to school. What started as a missing child case was now falling apart right in front of her mother's boyfriend, Stefan Stern, who was the last person to see her. Stefan said it was a normal morning, a school drop-off, a few errands, a stop at a vape shop. But the more detectives checked his story, the less it held. The timeline shifted, the details changed. Surveillance exposed gaps he just couldn't explain. And whatever hope was left started fading fast. This was no longer a search for a missing girl, it was a search for a missing corpse. Detectives had to break the news to Jennifer, so they showed her a picture of the Lincoln in the driveway at about 7.30. Jennifer takes the picture in her hand, scrunches her brow and looks closer at her daughter. Surveillance picks up his silver Lincoln again and again that morning. At 7.35, it's at the trash compactor. Stefan gets out and throws a white trash bag inside. Maddie is still visible in the front passenger seat, her head tilted to the left, mouth hanging open, seat belted in. At 8.19, the car is seen at the front gate. At 8.31, it leaves through the back gate. And in every one of those videos, Maddie is still in the same position. A sleeping 13 year old doesn't usually remain frozen in the same posture across multiple stops, multiple gates, multiple movements through a complex, but a dead body does. And then the cameras at the compactor made the morning even darker. Near the tread from a tire matching Stefan's vehicle, it recover a white trash bag containing Maddie's backpack, a white crock, and her school-issued laptop. So while Stefan is telling detectives about McDonald's, a vape shop, and a forgotten key fob, and a girl sleeping quietly in the front seat, the evidence is telling a very different story. The car didn't just stay in the Kissimmee area, investigators later traced Stefan's vehicle out towards St. Cloud, about 30 minutes away. License plate readers and traffic cameras followed the Lincoln to Hickory Tree Road. And by the time the car was seen coming back, it had a spare tire on it. And this time, Stefan wasn't lying. At some point that morning, he really did have a flat tire. Someone saw him pulled over on the side of the road. Being home from 192 on Hickory Tree, I observed that great vehicle, Lincoln, is it, with a black rear tire. He was on the side of the road, stooping down in the back, looking at the tire, which I found odd. Okay. So normally, I just blow it off, that was around 1230. The guy didn't see Maddie in the passenger seat because Stefan had already moved her. Possibly to her final location by then. It's plausible he got a flat tire while off-roading, and off-loading, the body. Just three hours earlier, surveillance footage from a parking garage near the vape shop caught him in the act of moving the body. Stefan backs his vehicle into a parking space by the stairs. He exits his vehicle and walks towards the rear. Then he opens the trunk. At 941 AM, Stefan is seen placing Maddie, who was wearing a green sweatshirt into the trunk of his vehicle. He then exits the parking garage and heads onto 192. Detectives don't tell him about their mounting evidence. They're still feeling a map. And his question to details about his timeline, his answers are very polite. And he's sticking to his story, his vague story. I'm so sorry, I know the details are important and just the way our brains work with ADHD is those things can get fuzzy. Are you on any medication? I'm supposed to be. I have not been medicated lately, so I'm just not a morning person. I'm not, I'm very time blind on the best of days and forgetful. So I understand that none of that is helpful in this case. I'm very sorry. We're going to have the apartment secured for the rest of the night. Okay. Why? So the investigation is not going to happen tonight. It is. He asks whether the investigation will still happen that night. It would. It would. But that didn't stop Stefan from continuing his movements when the interviews ended. Because before sunrise, while the search was still very much alive, he takes Jennifer's car and leaves the hotel, heading out towards St. Cloud around 3am. Then later that morning, he takes off again. This time much farther. Records show Jennifer's Nissan traveling to North Port. Where Jennifer would say he came back with a wall walk up and claimed he'd just gone to 1.92. He never told her where he'd actually been, which is important because North Port isn't around the corner. It's two hours away. It's at one point he moved close to where his parents lived right now in the North Port Florida territory county. You caught that, right? The one place these killers always seem to head towards after killing is back to mommy and daddy. And in this case, that was Northport, Florida, where Stephens' parents lived. Obviously you live down in Northport? Yes, I'm just gonna say, I respect for you. There's a storage unit down there. Yeah, I have a storage unit. Is that your son's storage unit? No, that's your storage unit. Does he have access to it? No, I have a keys. Where are you aware that your son come visit you on Monday morning? Yes, Monday? Yeah. No, he left his son there. Okay. Stephens' dad sounds confused because he is. You see, Stephens had been living with his parents for a few months after another breakup with Jennifer, but they were still on good terms. And because of his strong bond with Maddie, Jen invited him back for Maddie's birthday. So his dad is talking about his son leaving on Sunday to head to Kissimmee for Maddie's birthday. He doesn't know yet that just three days later, Stephens would quietly make that same drive back without telling anyone. It would become apparent later in the investigation that Stephens had traveled to his parents' place in Northport because he had a hard drive there containing, incriminating material, let's say. And as if the Northport trip wasn't incriminating enough, what they found on his phone was worse yet. But he had tried to erase it. When I saw him at the house, everything was normal. We were chatting, they were talking, he was acting normal, he was sitting in my computer chair, dismissing around his phone. While we were hanging out, he mentioned something along the lines of, "Oh man, I've been avoiding this phone update for a really long time. I should probably update it now." And he said, "Do it. Don't avoid it. Just get it over with." And he updates his phone. And then tells me, "Oh my god, I don't know what button I just pressed, but I just back for your reset my entire phone." And he said, "How the hell does that happen?" Well, that happens quite simply when you have something to hide. You deliberately go to your phone settings, find the reset tab, and tap it to erase all the content. And that's what Stephens thought he did. But a computer scientist, he was not. So earlier that day, I think if I could have came or somebody came and asked Stephens for his cell phone. If he would willingly give it up so that they can look at it or if they would need a warrant. And I remember him saying, "Should I have asked the warrant? Should I have?" And I'm like, "No, you got nothing to hide. Give him your fucking phone." And then when you guys came in the evening and you guys told us to wait outside and we waited at my car, he started getting very anxious and very panicky going, "I want my phone back. I want my phone back." And I said, "Listen, at this point, it's their phone. It's theirs for fucking ever. I don't give a shit. We will buy you a new phone. It doesn't matter anymore. Whatever they need, they need. Like, let them look at it." And he's like, "I just want my phone back." And I'm just like, "Do you, are you trying to make yourself more suspicious?" Because like, you're. If you were to go to make your phone back right now, that would look suspicious stuff. Like, what are you doing? I'm thinking he's just getting a patient. He's bored and wants to plan his phone. And at one point, he takes my phone to start playing with it. I give it up. And as if here, play on my phone. Have fun. Just two days after Maddie went missing, detectives had Stephens phone. And all the evidence on it, which was quite a bit. They found graphic pictures and videos of him sexually abusing. 13-year-old Maddie, Soto. And one picture Stephens face is visible, and his tongue is on Maddie's nipple. It was explicit, undeniable, and extremely disturbing. And it had been saved among an album of child sexual abuse material. They didn't just find one picture or one scene. They found hundreds. Basically a typical redditor's stash. These pictures pointed to repetition, duration, a system of abuse. Later reporting would describe roughly 1700 images linked to Stephens accounts, stretching back at least two years. So the phone did not just prove what Stephens had done. It showed that he had been doing it for a very long time. And the investigators matched the abuser in those files to Stephens own body parts, if you catch my drift. Reports about the pictures describe a bright pinkish area below the head of the penis, and a black mark or freckle on it. Also visible in some pictures. Yuck. They also collected penile swabs from them, which I'm sure was quite humiliating. By then, detectives weren't just looking at abuse images. They were connecting the penis in those images directly to Stephens' stirs. Imagine that being your job. Now that detectives had Stephens phone, Jennifer was forced to reconcile with her understanding of who he really was. Like, I look back at shit now. I'm just like, he was fucking lying. He was fucking faking. What else has he been lying to me about? I know he's like a master liar manipulator because he's done it to his parents and he's told me and shown me the lies he's done to his parents. But I don't know why I never thought not me. That would be because Jennifer forgot this stark truth. That people will always show you who they really are if you pay close enough attention. I told him to call his dad because I had a feeling something y'all knew something and was going to come down on him. And I'm just like, they're focusing on wrong person. They have the wrong person. In my head I'm convinced you guys are just that you have the wrong person. It was definitely a wrong person. Just not the wrong person for these crimes. But what happened to Maddie was not an accident at all. Jennifer asked detectives how the hell does that happen? Well, the detectives wanted that question answered also. And they wanted to know if Jennifer was complicit. I don't know what you want me to say or do or just want my daughter back. And this is exactly what I was just talking about. We are literally having a conversation right now about Maddie possibly being dead. And you have yet to shed a tear. By now detectives no Maddie is dead. They know Stefan is responsible. But the questions that are about to get a lot darker are these. Why did he kill her? And how does this kind of sexual abuse happen for years in a home with someone you say you trusted with your life? Jennifer may have trusted Stefan with her life. But Maddie was the one who paid for it. And what they're about to uncover is far worse than how she died. [Music]