Interviews paint picture of relationship with family, Madeline’s mom
Over three hours of police interviews released to the media last week paint a picture of Stephan Sterns, the man police have charged with sexually abusing and murdering Kissimmee 13-year-old Madeline Soto in the final week of February.
The Kissimmee Police Department, Osceola County Sheriff’s Office and Orange County Sheriff’s Office interviewed his father, Chris Sterns of North Port between Feb. 27-29, after Soto had gone missing but before her body was discovered along Hickory Tree Road south of St. Cloud on March 1. They also interviewed Chris and mother Debra Sterns on Sept. 6 in North Port.
The two made it clear they didn’t approve of their son’s relationship with Jennifer Soto, Madeline’s mother, saying the by-product of her mental state due to taking medication for anxiety and other issues made her “not a good influence” for their son.
“She’s bi-polar, bi-sexual, a drug addict … the family was disapproving. She was sharing drugs with Stephan,” Debra Sterns said. “She was spiraling down and taking him down with her.”
“They were feeding off each other, and not in a positive way,” said Chris Sterns. “She is as culpable as he is (regarding the death of her daughter).”
Stephan’s emotions were erratic and unpredictable due the medications he’s been on, the father said, and the parents said he was diagnosed with a TBI (traumatic brain injury) from a car crash during his youth, and was on an IEP (individual education plan) while in school.
“He’s spent a lifetime lying to us,” Chris Sterns told investigators.
The parents said Stephan worked at Disney for a year and appeared to have his life on an upward path, but he left the job and formed a pattern of always being short of money. At one point, when Stephan and Jennifer agreed not to be in a relationship, Chris said Stephan took over one of the upstairs bedrooms at Jennifer’s Venetian Bay condominium and, going back to November 2022, was being charged $600 a month for rent, an amount Chris said he ended up paying many months.
“I didn’t realize I was supporting the whole family,” he said.
After Stephan left Kissimmee and went back to the North Port home in 2023, the parents said he'd lock himself in his room all day and only come out for dinner— but would be on Facetime with Jennifer while out of the room.
The parents said Stephan had planned to go to Kissimmee for Madeline’s birthday party on Feb. 25, 2024—the last day most of the family saw her alive. He said he’d be gone a week, and Chris and Debra said they, “Looked forward to the break.”
Chris said Madeline called Stephan to make sure he was coming Sunday for the birthday party thrown by her grandmother. Indications are from records that he arrived in Kissimmee after the party, and Stephan called Chris when he arrived.
Chris said he tried to reach Stephan during the early afternoon on Monday, Feb. 26—the day Madeline went missing—and when he finally reached Stephan at 3:17 p.m.,
“His voice sounded a little off,” Chris said. “I thought maybe he didn’t have a good night’s sleep.
And then he said he had a flat tire … now, the radar goes up.”
Stephan was vague about where the flat happened. Then at 4:54 p.m., Stephan called to say he was en route to Madeline’s grandmother’s office. “He said there’s been an ‘occurrence.’ I thought that was a strange word to use,” Chris said. “A flat tire, and this, two events in one day, that’s weird.”
Stephan talked about how he said he dropped Madeline off for school and Hunter’s Creek Middle at a church down the road and on the opposite side of State Road 417 because, "Maddie didn't want to be seen dropped off in front of the school because he didn’t drive a cool enough car.”
He then talked about how he held himself responsible for Madeline’s disappearance. “The same interview he gave on Tuesday (to TV media on the 27th)," Chris said. "Almost like he was rehearsing it with me.”
Chris said Jennifer texted him on Feb. 28, the day Stephan was arrested, to ask him to “get Stephan a lawyer” and described the sexual images found on his phone and Google Drive. (By the 28th, Stephan had been charged with 60 counts stemming from creating and keeping child sexual assault materials).
When asked by the detective if the couple thought Sterns was “capable of doing this,” Debra replied, “If you asked me Sunday (the day before Madeline went missing), I’d say, ‘Never in a million years.’ He loved that child as his stepdaughter. He was not allowed to discipline her, Jennifer did that, but he served as a peacekeeper.”
Indeed, in another part of the interview, Debra said when Jennifer and Madeline would come to North Port to visit, she observed them butting heads, to the point that Debra thought Madeline exhibited the same bipolar tendencies as her mother. At one point she heard Madeline refer to Stephan as “Dad”.
In that same interview, Debra told investigators about a premonition or dream she had that made her think the death was accidental.
“In the dream they were in Maddie’s room unclothed. Jen came in to wake her up, was confronted by them being together in a way they shouldn’t have been, a struggle ensued and she hit her head or broke her neck, and Jen said to Stephan, ‘You caused this, you have to fix it,’” Debra said of the dream.
