No murder charges yet as Madeline Soto’s friends, family mourn

While the body of a Kissimmee teenager who never arrived at Hunter’s Creek Middle School Monday, was recovered Friday in rural St. Cloud, her mother's boyfriend remains in jail on no bond.

Stephan Sterns, 37, was arrested in connection with the case on Feb. 28 on charges of sexual battery, sexual battery on a person under age 12 and possession of sexual performance materials, and is being held at the Osceola County Jail.

Sterns refused to make a first court appearance on Thursday; although he waived appearing again Monday, an initial court hearing was held with his public defender.

As of the press deadline for this edition, no murder charges have been filed. The Kissimmee Police Department continues to investigate the case, offering up no new information since her body was found Friday off Hickory Tree Road near Pearl Lake.

That's not all that came from that scene east of St. Cloud. On Saturday, as part of the release of a group of images from a community event Saturday afternoon to the Osceola County Sheriff's Office's Instagram account (OCSO reportedly was the agency to discover the body Friday) was an "investigative photograph" of a body wearing a green shirt and blue jeans. It caused a community uproar with the belief it was Soto's body. Ninth Circuit State Attorney Andrew Bain has asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate; the Sheriff's Office said it would cooperate late Tuesday.

"Today the Sheriff’s Office contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to offer our cooperation and transparency into the inadvertent release of an investigative photograph," Sheriff Marcos Lopez's office said in a release sent out late Tuesday afternoon. "We understand the community’s concerns and we welcome an independent review of what transpired."

Meanwhile, a makeshift memorial is visible outside of Hunter’s Creek Middle School, where Soto was in the seventh grade, as well as one where her body was discovered off of Hickory Tree Road.

The timeline

According to police reports and arrest affidavits filed by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office and Kissimmee Police Department, mother Jennifer Soto reported Madeline missing at 8 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 26. She told police Sterns picked her up at their Kissimmee home, and he said he dropped her off in front of a church blocks away from Hunter’s Creek Middle School on Town Loop Boulevard. Family and friends interviewed said that, along with Madeline leaving her phone at home, were out of the ordinary. The mother went to pick Madeline up at school at dismissal and learned she never showed up to school.

Originally an Orange County case, Kissimmee Police became involved when it was revealed the victim lived with her mother and Sterns in a Kissimmee condominium off Hoagland Boulevard. By the morning of the 28th, flyers with Madeline’s missing persons photo went up all over downtown Kissimmee and the immediate area.

Police did a forensic review of Sterns’ cell phone—after he said he’d “accidently” performed a factory reset on it— and recovered graphic images of sexual acts with a minor. The photos were revealed to be from August 2022, and evidence in the photos showed it was in the Soto Kissimmee home. While police did not reveal if Madeline was depicted in the photos, they gave a date of birth of the victim as Feb. 22, 2011, which would match to her, that Sterns’ organs were also depicted, and that the act occurred when the victim was under 12 years old. He was arrested Wednesday.

By Friday, Orange Sheriff ’s officials said their investigation led them to believe Madeline was deceased, after finding her backpack and a school laptop in a dumpster near her home; police had evidence Sterns, in his silver Lincoln MKZ, had been there the morning of the 26th, then in St. Cloud later that day.

As part of the joint effort, the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office found Soto’s body east of St. Cloud near Pearl Lake around 5 p.m. Friday.

Kissimmee Police, who took over the investigation as the lead agency midweek, continues to work on the case, and has provided no further updates through Wednesday morning.