Content advisory: This article mentions sex abuse, CSAM, and homicide. Please take care while reading.
The tragic case of Madeline Soto is the most high-profile murder investigation coming out of Florida in 2024. All around the country, and even the world, countless people have got their eyes on this case, united by feelings of empathy for what the 13-year-old had to endure for years leading up to her untimely and unjustifiable death, and feelings of anger and contempt towards her abuser and alleged murderer.
According to the charges, and corroborated by evidence that will with little doubt be virtually impossible to defend in court, 37-year-old Stephan Sterns is accused of having sexually abused his on-again off-again girlfriend’s daughter for years, documenting much of this abuse in hundreds of videos and photographs recovered by investigators, and ultimately, snuffing Maddie’s life mere days after her 13th birthday.
Here’s what we know about Stephan Sterns and his life before and during the six years he was in Maddie and Jennifer Soto‘s lives.
Alleged sex abuser Stephan Sterns’ past
Alarmingly, Stephan Sterns used to work at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. His Facebook reads: “Cast member at Walt Disney World.” Disney disputed this, but a video shared online of a man who looks like Sterns working at the entrance of Journey into Imagination – which doesn’t mean Disney made a false statement, he might’ve been working for an external contractor. The video is no longer up, but Court TV, a true-crime station that has been on top of this case, shared a screengrab. His parents would later, in an interview with Hidden True Crime, corroborate how their son used to work at Disney World.
According to his Facebook page, Sterns is from Lake Forest, California –a fact his parents also corroborate – he was a warranty manager/production associate at Smart Build Homes, and he also worked as a realtor at one point. On his page, you can also find an aggressive review Sterns posted of the Universal CityWalk in Orlando:
Naturally, his Facebook page is now swarmed with angry netizens demanding answers and condemning the horrifying allegations.
On a podcast called Gray Hughes Investigates, the podcaster interviewed a handful of people who allegedly knew Sterns prior to the incident. As his Facebook page evidences, Sterns was a Warhammer and other fantasy tabletop and card games enthusiast and some of his acquaintances knew him because they shared this hobby. The majority of interviewees thought Stephan was strange to begin with, but only after the allegations came out, did some of them retroactively make sense of some of his very odd behavior.
One of the men interviewed, Ryan, disclosed how Sterns used to collect things that ranged from just weird for a grown man, like Tamagotchi, to downright disturbing for anyone, such as keeping “his semen in bottles,” and trying “to make weapons out of weird stuff.” Ryan and two other interviewees, Frank and Josh, alluded to the fact that Sterns used to have substance abuse issues, one of the substances being Adderall and the other weed.
The recent interview with his parents corroborated most of what Sterns’ old friends said about him, namely how he had an interest in children’s toys, such as Tamagotchi and lightsabers, well into adulthood, and how he had problems with weed consumption. They also discussed a couple of traumatic instances he went through as a child and a teenager, most notably how he got run over by the same pickup truck twice and that resulted in symptoms of traumatic brain damage like memory loss. Ever since the accident, his parents recalled how their son’s personality suffered a 180º shift.
As parents, Debra and Chris Sterns’ situation is hard to imagine. However, unlike some parents in other criminal cases, like Chris Watts‘ mother or Brian Laundrie’s parents, they have removed the wool that was pulled over their eyes and accepted what their son is accused of having done. Despite being emotionally conflicted as parents to a man charged with the unthinkable, Debra and Chris spoke candidly and described their son quite incisively at times, saying he has had a constant problem with telling the truth and that he is a “gaslighter,” a “narcissist,” and an “emotional bully,” among other descriptors.
For how long was Sterns in Madeline’s life? When did the abuse start?
It is unknown exactly how long Sterns was in the Sotos’ lives. Josh, the former friend, said it was about eight years. But, of the six years that it is known he surely was, it has been reported that there were a few hiatuses in the relationship between Stephan and Jennifer. One of these gaps is corroborated by a pause in the date of the recordings.
After recovering the images from the factory reset Sterns claimed he “accidently” performed, police found dozens upon dozens of explicit child sexual material that is assumed to feature Madeline. He is currently charged with over 60 counts related to the abuse that was on his phone. According to his parents, there were also 30 thousand concerning images contained in a hard drive they unknowingly had at home.
The first charge for “Sexual Battery on a Child Under 12” dates back to the Summer of 2019. Madeline would have been 8 years old at the time. Interestingly, the charges have a pattern of occurrence that matches the summer holidays. There are no charges from 2020 to 2022, which makes some people wonder whether that was one of the periods in which Jenn and Stephan were separated.
One of the interviewees on Gray Hughes Investigates said that Stephan, after the last break up, had only returned to Maddie and Jenn’s life a couple of months before the teen’s murder. It is now known, thanks to the released interviews with Stephan and Jennifer, that Maddie would almost always sleep in bed with both of them and, on occasion, just in bed with Stephan. On that fateful Sunday night, Jenn sent Stephan and Maddie to sleep in a bedroom upstairs because she wanted to get a good night’s sleep.
On top of his suspicious use of the app Telegram, particularly in the early morning hours of Feb. 26, Debra Sterns said something during the aforementioned interview that could support the hypothesis circulating online and on the media that Stephan was collecting the CSAM for more than his personal use: “All that money that was coming in by the handful? Where did it come from?”
Although a lot of information has been unveiled in the past months, a few key facts remain obscure. Hopefully, by the end of this lengthy process, the whole truth will have come out and there will be justice for Madeline. Stephan Sterns’s next scheduled court appearance – so far, he has repeatedly waived his right to appear in court – is a status hearing on all charges set for Oct. 14.
Published: Sep 27, 2024 08:23 am