All parties involved — Stephan Sterns' defense team, prosecutors, Soto's friends and family, and Madeline Soto birth father and stepmother Tyler and Tatiana Wallace — left the courthouse without making a statement following Monday’s plea hearing that sent the 39-year-old to prison for the rest of his life following his guilty plea on 20 charges that he sexually abused Soto for as long as four years.
It came despite a plea of no contest for Soto’s murder in late February 2024, despite law enforcement having record of Sterns being in the area of Canoe Creek Road days before her body was discovered south of St. Cloud.
While Soto’s grandmother and aunts — but not her mother, Jennifer Soto — either read impact statements or had them read to the court and became tearfully remorseful, Tyler Wallace read his and, without breaking down, was pointed and poignant toward Sterns, who he called, “Weak and a coward, and exploited a family which you have torn apart.”
He said despite making choices early in Madeline’s life to not be a part of it, they had restored contact in the last couple years and she had talked about coming to live with him after her 13th birthday — which was just three days before she perished.
“October 2023 was the last time we saw her,” Wallace said. “Now, because of the actions of this depraved man, I’ll never get the see the woman she’d become.”
Deborah Barra, a former prosecutor and Osceola Sheriff's Office legal counsel who served as the Wallace's counsel, said the Wallaces were not in a frame of mind to speak after Monday’s hearing.
"The sex crimes trial was set to start Tuesday, with a lot of videos. That's their little girl," Barra said after Monday's hearing. "(Tyler) recognizes Stephan Sterns will die in prison.
"He is not getting out. Ever."
Barra said the family saw the value in Monday’s plea — a payoff in keeping Sterns in jail for life, and that the father, other family members and the community won’t have to deal with what would have been a gruesome trial with evidence depicting the sexual assault.
“It also takes away all the appeals of a death penalty case. Nothing ever will change the facts, but this is a step toward getting through this,” she said.
While Sterns did give a statement at the end of Monday’s hearing, saying he, “Prayed to God countless times to trade places with her, to take me instead,” Barra called it, “Disgusting.”
“I can’t speak for the family, but I did not take that as an apology, I took it as he misses her, for what ever reason, and I was disgusted by that.”
She noted the no contest plea to murder was simply a means to an end for the family.
“However you get Stephen Sterns put in jail without any hope of ever getting out, there comes a peace with that outcome,” she said. "(Prosecutors) Danielle Pinnell and William Jay put their hearts and souls into this case, they didn’t try to rush or force anything. This process came out of conversations that took place. In a case like this, there’s never going to be joy or happiness, a resolution that says, ‘That’s great.’ But it is a matter of what it means for the family, and for Madeline.
“The media exposure in a child sex case, where that’s what’s written about for weeks on end … if you have the ability to get closure without having that to happen with the same outcome, where (Sterns) will die in prison, that is the big picture, and the goal, and that was achieved today.”
