Private property owners called for its removal after four months
The memorial to Madeline Soto, the 13-year-old Kissimmee girl who was found murdered on March 1 after a week-long search, has been taken down after over four months by volunteers.
Advocates for the family bagged up over 16 bags of stuffed animals and trinkets placed along a fence on Hickory Tree Road, in an area surrounded by open ranch land southeast of St. Cloud’s city limits, near where Soto’s remains was found.
They stress that it was a member of the family that owns the land, not the county, who directed the memorial be taken down.
“We were told in no uncertain terms to remove it, and that they weren’t talking about it anymore,” said Nancy Roska, one of the family advocates working with Soto’s family members, especially her biological father as the court case goes on. “I hadn’t heard anything from (the owners) for months, then one day when I was there, I was told … they wanted it removed.”
As far as the court case, Stephan Sterns, the boyfriend of Madeline’s mother Jennifer Soto, he is charged with first-degree murder in her death, faces the death penalty, and is also charged with some 60 other sexual-abuse related charges against a minor. His case — he has yet to appear in court or in front of a judge at any hearing or reading of charges — is scheduled for a status hearing on Monday, Oct. 14.
While Jennifer Soto has not yet been charged in connection to her daughter’s death, sources say she is under investigation while staying with family and under attorney orders to “lay lower than low”.
All that was left late last week were a picture of Madeline, a sign noting the memorial had been moved and that items should not be left, and a few locks on a separate post in front of the fence, which is on private property. Osceola County had installed “No Parking in the Right of Way” signs just off the roadway, which is county-owned land, near the site.
“All of these items told a story, and we got to know Madeline through them,” said Jenny Esquivel Mendez, Madeline’s community advocate. “It was a way for her to leave a legacy.”
She said she thinks the reason the landowners suddenly wanted the memorial removed was the emerging of emails from Sterns’ family to him in jail that portray him as a victim at the hands of Jennifer Soto, as well as an anti-death penalty advocate who has indicated he would present evidence to that point at an eventual trial.
Esquivel Mendez said she has reached out to Osceola County to assist in finding a permanent location to rebuild a memorial, not just for Madeline but for all the children who have been in her same situation, “Under Madeline’s wings.”
A county official said the county has had conversations with the landowner and the family, but thus far there have just been talks, and no plans.
“We can’t have anything in the right of way,” county spokesperson Mark Pino said. “As far as moving it our housing it at a public location, there is no mechanism in place to replicate it or any precedent to do that.”
In the meantime, the memorial items are being held in an undisclosed location.
