Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
The day following her 13th birthday party, Madeline Soto, went missing. The Orange County Sheriff’s Office in Florida proceeded on the best and only information they had: the story offered by Maddy’s mother, Jennifer, and her partner, Stephan.
As they retraced the young girl’s last movements and spoke with others in her life, they began to discover the shocking, and disturbing secrets that may have led to the end of Maddy’s young life.
on february 22nd madeline soto turned 13,that weekend she celebrate with a birthday party at a family member’s home in central florida.
madeline lived with her mother, jennifer at the venetia bay village in cimi just south of orlando.
she was a student at hunter creek middle school,maddie may not have received the best grades but she was described by her teachers as a sweet girl
she was simply prone to distraction,the 13 year old was diagnosed with ADHD maddie told friends that the medication she was prescribed would make her tired.
so,more recently she had just stopped taking it.
what was concerning were reports by teachers that she was often fatigued in class her head down her eyes closed.
friends reported that maddie was often sad,they said that she cried without offering a reason.
at other times she complained to them about her mother she called jennifer bipolar and said that they argued frequently
of jennifer’s boyfriend stefan sterns maddie spoke affectionately to her friends they reported that she was close to her stepfather.
often texting or even face Timing him throughout the day.
it may not have seemed relevant at the time but in early 2024 madeline also spoke about her desire to run away from home.
she told friend that she would build a house out in the woods as soon as she was 13 she said she planned to pack and leave home.
on monday february 26th,the day after mad’s birthday party jenifer soto drove to hunter creek middle school to collect her daughter , she waited as the children streamed out from the doors as they dispersed it became clear that maddeline is not amongst them
thinking that maddie maybe with her grandmother jen walked to her mother’s office building,it was close to the school in somhwere maddie had walked to in the past at the end of a school day.
but she wasn’t there
school administrators checked each period’s attendance records and informed jen that her daughter had not atended classes that day at all .
she began immediately to search the surrounding area in her car and on foot but just after 4:30 pm with no signs of maddie two unidentified women made calls to 911 on the behalf of the distressed mother .
from her mother’s office building near to the middle school jen and other waited for police there were no more obvious locations to search and no signe of madeline.
it was nearly 8 :pm when deputies responded to the call out with jen with a hand full of individuals offering support including her boyfriend stefan sterns
according to the school teachers have until 3:30 in the afternoon to report their students attendance ,the automated call notifiying jen that maddie had not been in class would not be made until 5:45 that night.
by that time madeline had been missing for nearly 8 hours
the mother was already in a panic walking the surrounding are searching for signs of madelne and making calls to police.police would learn that it was stefan that drove madeline to school that morning
he chimed in to provide a description of what she was wearing notably jen inserted to clearify that madeline had been vearing black shorts.
that jen seemed to know what maddie was wearing that day suggested that she saw her daughter before she left for school a fact that would later be questioned .
jen search her phone for the most recent photo of maddie,one taken from her birthday party the day before.
maddie had forgotten her cell phone at home that day according to jen her forgetfulness was not uncommon it was a symptom of her ADHD.
Maddie’s school issued laptop was trackable though it had not been turned on since sunday the day prior,stefan then told police that we implying that both he and jen dropped her off a block away from the school that morning at roughly 8:30 or 8 :40
stefan spoke independently with deputies following the missing person’s report the officers were beginning to piece together a timeline of maddie’s last known movements
they learned that stefan had taken her to school that morning something that he claimed to have done on occasion but was in fact a rare task for the self-proclaimed stepfather
madeline was commonly taken to school by her mother or grandparents her biological father kept in touch witch her but was not actively in her life it was stefan who claimed to have assumed this fatheryl role.
according to the stepdad when he does take maddie to school she asks that he does not drive her all the way to the building but rather prefers to be dropped at distance so she can walk up the reason for this is that she thinsk that stefan’s vehicle a silver 2010 lincoln is unattractive .
stefan agreed todrop her near to peace united metodist chuch located at town loop boulevard.
which is approximately a 5- minute walk away from hunter creek middle schoolhe stated that after he parted ways mith maddie he watch as she looked through her backpack
jen soto told police that she saw maddie at 11 :00 the night before when her daughter and stefan went to bed together in the same room Jen told deputies in two separate conversations that the three of them regularly slept together in one bed as a family.
but Jen had recently started a new job she chose to sleep separately from maddie and stefan in order to get a better sleep queried if it ws common for her to leave her boyfriend and her daughter alone reports show Jen offered different responses.
in one instance she said it was rare for his to take place in another conversation she admitted it was not uncommon arrangement in the house .
but one that did not concern her
she stated that she had been hyper vigilant with maddie around stefan but had grown more relaxed over the years the two had been together on and off for roughly 7 yearsthrougout that period of time stefan and madeline she sid had grown very close
stefan’s description of his movement that orning became a focul point of the investigtion immediately the 38 year old took police to the location by the church where he claimed to left maddie to walk the rest of the way
initially the story was check out
a camera was located in front of the peace chuch property at the intersection of town od loop boulevard and hunter park lane right where stefan claimed to have stopped
deputies checked the church camera it appeared to show a juvenile enter the property from town loop boulevard at approximately 8:00 8:40 and sit down on the ground in the parking lot
the figure then stood to leave at 8:58 and in the direction of the school but there were issues with the footage it was of extremely poor quality as a result the figure could not be confirmed to be madeline.
not even the clothing could be seen clearly enough to discern a match to what she was thougt to have been wearing
additionally what was somewhat visible on the recording was the vehicle that drop off the blurry figure it appeared to be a dark sedan not a silver lincoln.
indeed traffic cameras did capture stefan’s car driving around the school area that morning but not all the way to the location he stated
as his vehicle approached the school he appeared to make a turn and began traveling in the opposite direction.
the orange county sheriff’s departement organized a massive search efforts to find madeline ,over 50 members of the emergency response team combed through hiking trails and woodland near the school grounds.
dogs tracking maddie’s sent walked the paths while ATVs and horses were utilized to cover th rough terrain
we were able to access maddie’s phone and there is information on the phone that indicated that she told people when she turned 13 which was on february 22nd she actually wanted to go live in the woods so that was in her phone”
while the search ws ongoing
Jen and stefan spoke with the lokal news media to help to get the word out
stefan reiterated what he told the deputies
the sheriff’s departement had een tracking stefan’s movements all over CMI and the surrounding area using traffic cameras and building security footage.
what they found was that the turn he mad away fromthe school at 8:10 a.m was not the only odity in his course of travel that day.
security camera footage next to the complex dumpsters capture stefan discarding items into it at at 7 :30 a.m after he claimed to do a school drop he drove to a vape shop only to find tha it hadn’t opened yet.
he said he returned to the apartment complex a time then left again to go back to that vape shop, after that he set off to a game store called house of rules. but just numerous other locations that he said he intended to visit that day stefan drove towards them but never actually reached these destinations .
in this way he explained why his car was captured in different location around Orange and Oola counties but was never on camera entering a resturant or shop
sometime between noon and 2:00 p.m the 38 year old had to change a flat tire when he did so he said he was pulled over somewhere on US 192 a rural road that sees little traffic
he could not specify where exactly on the roadside he stopped to swap out the flat cameras place him driving out to this area but could not determine the full route he took
search warrant was obtained for the home and stefan’s car,during the execution of the warrant deputies requested accesss to stefan’s sell phone.
stefan reluctantly granted access to his device which he claimed he had accidentally reset to its factory settings in fact forensic teams found that on the day maddie disappeared he preformed a factory reset on his phone not once but twice.
detectives also traced from the apartment complex dumpster to the facility where it was separately emptied.
the Orange county sheriff’s office forensic unit located the intact tread of a tire the pattern match the rear passenger tire of stefan’s vehicle
in close procimity to the the tire the crime scene investigators located a white trash bag it was this bag stefan seen tossing into the apartment dumpster before the school around 7:30 a.m the trash bag contained a blackpack with what appeared to be purple Hawaiian print and one white croc.
the matching she was found in onf of the bedrooms inside the house,inside the backpack CSI located an Orange public school computer with maddie’ s sotos name on it.
“we have some important development in this case we want to share with our community ,i wish we were here to tell you that we have found madeline but we have not found her ,last night detectives from CMI police departement met with maddie’s mother and they had to tell her the very devesteding news that allthough we have not found madeline
we are now confident that she is dead so our efforts will be focused on recovering madeline, our detectives have determined that madeline was never dropped off on the morning of febrary 26 near her school,instead we believe she was already dead at the time “
just aftertossing the white trash bag into the compactor at 7:30 a.m stefan returns to his vehicle this camera footage has not been released, after hearing what is captured the decision to keep it private is easy to understand.
accordigng to police visible in the front passenger seat of the Lincoln was a female wearing a green hoddie ,her head tilted onto her left shoulder,one police report described the young girl as in an abnormal way for a person to be seated.
at roughly 8:20 a.m stefan drove out through the complex ‘s gates briefly interacting with a security guard ,just over an hour later after driving his slumped pver passemger towards different destinations
stefan’s vehicle entered a parking garage at a holiday Inn, there he parked.
police say the security footage in the parking garage shows the drover exot the car lfit what appears to be a limp body from the front passenger seat and move her into the trunk the car then exited the lot .
stefan’s car was captured driving on old hicory tree road and nolte road later that day somewhere in this area he stopped to change his tire.
by 4:40 p.m he had returned to the complex where he tossed tire treads into the dumpster
roughly around this time jen was at the hunter creek school frantically trying to locate her daughter
stefan sterns was was arrested and held in custody but not at least initially for murder,that charge was certainy on the police’s radar but they had uncover a wealth of other incriminating evidence that compelled an immedate arrest .
detectives found that a Google drive was linked to stefan’s phone,the drive contained disturbing materials of a sexual nature dating over a period of roughly 2 years.
throughout 2022 and 2023 a number of these over 1,700 images and videos depicted madeline a notable physical feature of stefan was was visible in many of these mages wich removed any doubt that he was the adult male pictured.after a thourough inventory of the contents were made
stefan sterns was charged with 60 counts including sexual battery and charges specifically relating to his actions with a minor
metadata cotaning the date that each picture of video wa taken meant that many of the charges applied to a child under the age of 12, particuarly heinous crimes
in fact recent change in florida law meant that had the dates on these files varied by even a by even a few months he could he could have face the death penalty if convicted of the abuse charges.
a law applying a potential death sentence for these crimes was signed nto florida law in december of 2023 as it stood the 60 charges against him could still yield a term of life in prison if convicted on all or most counts
on friday march 1st 2024 law enforcement received a tip that stefan had been spotted changing a flat tire in the area of hickory tree road in st cloud, the witness placed him with his vehicle very near to the last camera that captured him driving that way on the afternoon on february 26 th.
about 4:30 that afternoon the sheriff’s departement contacted the land owner of the field behind a locked gate opposite the section of the road where stefan were thought to have pulled over .
opening the gate they wandered to the left where theres is a long line of tall bamboo trees at that point the captain noticed blue jeans just a few feet into the bambo three line , under the trees they spotted what appeared to be a body .
her top half was covered by a green colored hooded sweatshirt she wore blue jeans, it seemed that the young girl was covered by pieces of hay or dry grass.
it was later confirmed that the girl found in the tree line was madeline soto, due to the assumed nature of the crime involving domestic violence and that she was a minor , the cause of death was not officially realeased.
local news reported that they had come to believe from speaking with their sources in medical examiner’s office that madeline had died of strangulation
there’s beem a predictable amount of speculation relating to what jennifer soto knew what was happening in the home and when she knew about it.
the inconsistencies in the mother’s story did not help with her credibility, though it mist be acknowledged that a certain amount of confusion is understandable and expected
given the stress of losing her daughter ,one deputy reported that jen stated that she last saw her daughter in the morning, getting ready for school at approximately 8:00 an . this sighting would explain how she thought she knew what her daughter was wearing that day , though her description did not match what maddie was found wearing under the bamboo trees.
in a later interview jen stated only possibly hearing her her daughter that morning. jennifer now states that she did not in fact see maddie the morning she disappeared
she awoke around 7 0r 8 a.m and heard stefan taking the dog for a walk,she did not hear maddie in the house at all .
jen then left for an appointment at roughly 9,30, stefan had not yet returned from taking maddie to school she said .
according to casim PD jen is not a suspect in the case, detective morris who took lead in the investigation upon the discovery of materials on stefan’s cloud account confronted jennifer with some of the images .the detective wrote that when confronted ,Jen denied being able to identify the people in the photos.
he reported that it was clear what was being depitcted but despite this Jen insisted that she didn’t recogize anything in the picture as if she was in denial .
however he wrote she became visibly upset.
detectives had spoken with Jen on february 27th,3 days before madeline was found he noted om his report that the distraught mother referred to her daughter throughout the interview in the past tens.
stefan sterns was indicted for first -degree murder ,for the death of madeline soto he has subsequently refused to appear on court for any hearings he had exressed his discontent over the conditions offered at the county jail
the state of florida has declared its intention to seek the death penalty legal commentators have speculated that if stefan does push for a trial it would only to be to save him from death rowbased on what has been uncovered there is no realistic case to be made for his innocence in florida
a jury no longer needs to be unsnimous in its decision to use vse captial punishment.
a vote of 8 to four jurors in favor is sufficient to hand down this sentence