Report also notes Medical Examiner's cause of death
While the State Attorney said the Medical Examiner’s Office said they would not release the cause of death in the Madeline Soto case, new documents obtained from the Kissimmee Police Department give clues to how the Kissimmee 13-year-old was killed.
Stephan Sterns, the one-time boyfriend of Madeline’s mother Jennifer Soto, is accused in her death. He is in jail, charged with her murder, along with 60 counts of sexual abuse on a minor and lewd and lascivious molestation as investigators say they’ve uncovered thousands of photos and videos of him molesting her as early as 2019.
Next to listing the crime as a homicide, “Asphyxiation” is listed under “Weapons/Tools” of the investigation report, part of over 80 pages of documents obtained by the News-Gazette Monday.
On March 1, five days after Soto was reported missing, her body was found behind a fence and some trees along Hickory Tree Road south of St. Cloud. The following day, an investigator reportedly attended the autopsy done by the Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office, where Dr. Steven Giles “expressed concern over the hyoid bone (located in the front of the neck which supports the tongue) … the right portion of the bone was not intact, which could possibly be related to her being strangled. Dr. Giles listed the initial outcome of the autopsy as pending.”
The same detective went on to report that, “On March 29, 2024, I received the case synopsis from the medical examiner`s office. Dr. Giles ruled the cause of death as strangulation and the manner of death is homicide.”
But most damning is a series of comments mother Jennifer Soto made to investigators about why she directed Stephan and Madeline to sleep in an upstairs bedroom around 11 p.m. on Feb. 25, which would be the last time she saw her daughter.
As she was just waking up the next morning, she said she heard everyone “getting ready” that morning making noise in the kitchen but wasn’t sure who it was—this report makes the first references in the nearly six-month case to two female roommates. One had a 17-year-old son who stayed there occasionally. She noted that Sterns rarely took Madeline to school. The report stated an investigator showed her a photo from Sterns’ pone of a nude female in a bathroom; the roommate identified the person as herself, and said she did not give him permission to take the photo.
The other roommate spoke mostly Spanish.
Jennifer told investigators for years she was “hyper-vigilant” and would “never trust a man around my kids.”
“I was hyper-vigilant about how (Sterns) was around her … but nothing was ever truly weird … I trusted him enough to let that happen (sleep in the same room) that night,” she said during one interview. In another, she said she considered Stephan as one of her best friends, and that Jennifer stated she allowed Stephan and Madeline to sleep in the same room because she trusted Stephan, and he “treated her as his daughter.”
This contradicts a statement Jennifer made to police that she, “Didn’t feel comfortable with Madeline sleeping with Stephan.” But, she recalled telling them to go to sleep together on the 25th, “A selfish move because she wanted a good night’s sleep.”
Jennifer said she thought Madeline was taken on the walk from the church near Hunters Creek Middle School where Sterns said he dropped her off on Feb. 26. The reports show KPD began investigating their house the evening of Tuesday, Feb. 27, and asked everyone living there to find another place to stay that night.
During a police interview on March 1, Jennifer said she gave Stephan “the benefit of the doubt” that he had dropped her off at school on Feb. 26, and also claimed that, “Stephan is a master liar and a master manipulator, as she recently had this conversation with Chris (Stephan’s father).”
In that conversation, Jennifer, “Assumed law enforcement was looking into Stephan because he was the last person to see Madeline, and she wanted to believe he had nothing to do with her going missing.”
And, when the detective showed her photographs of Sterns and Madeline engaged in sexual activity, “That is when she realized Stephan was guilty.”
From the detective’s report: “I asked her what she thought Stephan was guilty of, she replied, ‘He’s been grooming and abusing my child.’ I asked Jennifer if she thought Stephan killed Madeline and she said, ‘At this point, I do.’ I asked her why she thought that and she said we showed her a photograph of Madeline slumped over in Stephan’s vehicle. Jennifer said she felt like Stephan dumped her body somewhere, but she didn’t know where.”
Sterns remains held in jail on the charges. His trial has already been delayed twice; a status hearing is scheduled for Oct. 14. At the last hearing in July, Sterns’ defense team noted it was seeking depositions from around 170 witnesses.
