Episode 360

0:00Speaker 1:Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences.

0:06Speaker 2:Listener discretion is advised.

0:12Speaker 3:And when you guys show me the picture of her, I believe the sexual stuff, but I didn't want to believe that he had done anything equal to her.

0:20Speaker 4:I'm like, know what if he did this? Stop buying.

0:29Speaker 5:Some of the stories we tell here on Soor and Scale will make you sick. They'll tug at your heartstrings, They'll change your whole perspective on humanity. They're the ones you can't get over, the ones you can't really shake, and they stay with you for a long time. The story we're about to tell you is one of them. This is part one of a two part series. Let's go.

1:52Speaker 4:Nine one one.

1:53Speaker 6:What's the location of your emergency?

1:56Speaker 5:The call is coming out of kissing Me, Florida in a quiet suburb in Pocket near Hunter's Creek Middle.

2:02Speaker 6:School, Police, fire or medical police?

2:05Speaker 7:Possibly, I'm reporting a missing child?

2:08Speaker 6:And is she white, black or Hispanic?

2:10Speaker 7:She's white, kay and dirty blonde hair, blue eyes.

2:15Speaker 6:Okay, hold on with me here, okay, And then how long has it been though, since you guys have last seen her?

2:21Speaker 7:Since this morning? She was dropped off at school this morning, and apparently she never showed up. We called everyone we knew, no one had seen her. She was less seen at the church next to Hunter's Creek Middle School. I think it's called Peace Church.

2:37Speaker 3:I'm not sure if.

2:38Speaker 7:He's back to dress.

2:39Speaker 5:She was dropped off that morning, just steps away from the school, but she never made it inside. By that afternoon, no one had seen her, not her friends, not her teachers, not a single person at the school she was dropped off then just disappeared. Her name was Madeline Soda and she was just thirteen years old. This was her best friend.

3:05Speaker 8:She came to school in the middle of the year in fourth grade. She was like the new kid, so like everybody kind of just picked on her stuff. She was in a different class to me.

3:14Speaker 1:She had picked on a lot by people like.

3:18Speaker 8:That, like nobody really liked and stuff. And then one day I kind of like went up to.

3:24Speaker 1:Her and I was like, Hey, what's your name?

3:26Speaker 8:And then we got to know each other ever since, I just been best friends.

3:30Speaker 5:As best friends, she and Maddie talked every day.

3:34Speaker 9:Like every single day.

3:34Speaker 8:She texted me every morning, I wake up and I was gonna text her mind unless she but usually I thought it was fitchy yesterday when she didn't text me at all, because usually even if justn't going to school that day, she texted me like the night or the date of like she like up brightly just so like text me like, hey, I'm.

3:51Speaker 9:Not going to school. And she didn't yesterday.

3:53Speaker 8:But I think everything of it except thought she like, oh she like.

3:56Speaker 10:S left it or something.

3:58Speaker 5:That morning, February twenty sixth, twenty twenty four, was supposed to be routine, a ride to school, maybe breakfast on the way. It was the kind of morning you don't think twice about until something goes horribly wrong. That morning, her mother's boyfriend, Stephen Stearns, drove her to school.

4:16Speaker 8:Stephanie who all him and she loved him.

4:20Speaker 9:They were really close.

4:22Speaker 5:They left earlier than usual. They had time to spare and talked about stopping for breakfast at McDonald's, but she changed her mind, as little kids do. She was sleepy, but she also just wanted to get to school early to hang out with her friends. Instead of waiting in the insufferable car line, she asked to be dropped off about a block away. She would walk the rest of the way to find her friends. Apparently, no matter who was taking her to school, Maddy preferred to be dropped off in the near vicinity. This was usually at the church across the street, where a lot of parents dropped off their kids to avoid the long lines. That morning, the car pulled over, Maddie got out and started walking.

5:09Speaker 7:They're going to the school to double text and everything. But from what we know, she wasn't there, so they could be back at seem too because it's right.

5:16Speaker 6:Next So that's fine. So if at least one of you remains there, though I have to meet with an officer, that's more than fine.

5:22Speaker 7:Okay, Yeah, I'll be here.

5:24Speaker 6:I'll be here, Okay, then all right, thank you so much, ma'am. And I'll go ahead and let you goo. We'll be out there as quickly as we can.

5:30Speaker 11:Okay.

5:31Speaker 5:When someone goes missing, every second matters. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter how much you want a limited resource like law enforcement. If there's no cops available. There's no cops available, what do you expect? After years of demonizing law enforcement all cops are bastards? You say, yeah, that has a negative but opposite effect.

5:54Speaker 9:Duh.

5:55Speaker 7:At LISTADICONI I called that long ago reporting the missing child. That it's sort of so howdong the captate here?

6:02Speaker 12:Okay, hold on, let me open up the call. Let's say the cost still currently depending. They had the deputies respond out there that we don't have any available deputies. We still have the call up though, holding.

6:12Speaker 7:Okay, so so no one's on their way yet, not yet. No does it take long set up to respond to the call.

6:21Speaker 12:If there's a big emergency in the area and there's nobody there's no units available, they put the call on hold, but as soon as one becomes available, they respond to the next pressing call. I'll go ahead and update them for the information.

6:34Speaker 7:All right, thank you, because it's happened on very recently, so we just want to everyone here.

6:40Speaker 5:Since eight am, at the same time, her family started calling the school, reaching out to teachers to see if anyone had seen her, but no one had.

6:50Speaker 13:It was one on any please pior medical.

6:53Speaker 7:No, it's not a medical issue.

6:55Speaker 12:We have a missing child.

6:57Speaker 14:Since this morning.

6:58Speaker 12:We already called three times and the police didn't show it up to it because ma'am.

7:03Speaker 13:I see it. There's a wait for a deputy response.

7:06Speaker 12:They haven't. They haven't come here yet.

7:09Speaker 13:I'm wareing, mam.

7:09Speaker 12:I see it.

7:10Speaker 13:It's waiting for a deputy response.

7:12Speaker 12:You're waiting for a deputy response, ma'am.

7:15Speaker 6:And how long what do we need to wait?

7:17Speaker 1:It's a child missing.

7:20Speaker 13:I understand it, man, but I'm just not able to give out eta. I don't know when they'll be.

7:23Speaker 6:There, So how long do we need to wait? An emergency and we.

7:29Speaker 13:Have the information, but it just is they're trying to get this someone as soon as possible.

7:33Speaker 6:So this is not informant for you guys.

7:35Speaker 13:Really, then we were very busy in the area. Look, I understand, and they'll be there something they can, Okay.

7:40Speaker 5:They didn't just call nine one one once. They had to call three times. The first call came in at around four forty three pm, then again at five sixteen, and then another one at seven twenty one. It took officers almost three hours to arrive, and they get there until seven thirty seven pm. Deputy logs show the call sat waiting because no deputies were available. Units were tied up with other emergencies and this one had to wait its turn. But before you blame dispatchers, understand that the people answering those calls weren't the ones heading out to search.

8:22Speaker 5:They were taking information and waiting for someone in the field to clear. They did their jobs correctly by the book, exactly as instructed. Mattie's mother was later told there were other missing children that day. Seems like an epidemic, right, resources were stretched thin. In fact, nearly one thousand children are reported missing in the United States every day. That works out to about one child every ninety seconds, or roughly three hundred and fifty thousand children under eighteen each year.

9:01Speaker 5:Think about that for just a second. That's roughly the capacity of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. So yeah, an Indianapolis Motor Speedway's worth a children goes missing every year. But to Maddie's parents, family and friends, statistics didn't really matter at the moment. This was serious and urgent. This was their own daughter. An entire day had now passed with no one seeing Maddie.

9:33Speaker 6:Does she have a cell phone that she might keep on her person?

9:36Speaker 7:She does it, She had when she looked at home conveniently today.

9:40Speaker 5:Okay, there was no surprise that Maddie left her phone at home. This was a common occurrence and it wasn't just because she was forgetful.

9:50Speaker 15:Okay?

9:50Speaker 6:Is she diagnosed with any medical mental conditions at all?

9:54Speaker 7:I know she takes medication for ADHD, and I think that I'm pretty sure that.

10:01Speaker 5:At seven thirty seven PM, officers pulled into the condo complex and Kissime, where Mattie lived with her mother, Jennifer Soda. Also in the home was Jennifer's boyfriend, Stephan Stearns, who was frequently there despite an on and off again relationship. The unit itself was shared with rooms rented out to other women, and the condo was owned by Mattie's grandfather. It was a crowded living arrangement, with multiple people coming and going in limited space inside the home. By the time deputies got there that evening, both Jennifer and Stephan were there answering questions and helping officers piece together the last known details from that morning. Officers started with the basics, documenting what Maddie was wearing and establishing a clear timeline.

10:49Speaker 9:Be there, what's going on?

10:52Speaker 3:So it was dropped off close to school this morning, but never wee it.

10:56Speaker 9:I went to the partment to school. I'm sorry once again, ahead, are.

11:02Speaker 10:We looking for another kid, or we have a kid.

11:06Speaker 9:Looking for another one.

11:09Speaker 5:Like I said, an epidemic, especially when Disney World is in your backyard.

11:15Speaker 16:So she was supposed to be dropped off high school, didn't make it to school, didn't make.

11:19Speaker 17:It to school.

11:19Speaker 4:I went to pick her up from school today and she never came out.

11:22Speaker 18:They announced it over the speaker, and I'm just like, maybe she walked.

11:25Speaker 3:Here, because sometimes she'll walk here to this office.

11:28Speaker 4:I came here, nothing.

11:29Speaker 9:I went back to the school.

11:30Speaker 4:We were closed.

11:31Speaker 3:I got to notice an email from the school thing she was absent. But I also messaged her teacher and he looked at her entire tends today and saw that she was completely not at school today either.

11:41Speaker 4:Okay, so she never made it.

11:43Speaker 9:Okay. What's her name?

11:45Speaker 4:Madeline?

11:47Speaker 16:M A d E O I an e I'm ade out I any any last name?

11:55Speaker 9:Otoya.

11:56Speaker 3:Date of birth February twenty second, two thousand and eleven, twenty seven seconds.

12:02Speaker 16:Oh sorry, twenty second, twenty eleven, thirteen for bred.

12:08Speaker 5:He said it quietly, but Stephan just pointed out that Maddie had just turned thirteen. In fact, just the day before a Sunday, the family had a birthday party. Her mother, Jennifer, and her mother's boyfriend, Stephan, were not there, but her best friend was. But on Monday evening back at the scene, officers needed to know what Maddie was wearing when she was last seen, so they talked to her mom and Stephan.

12:36Speaker 9:Green green, white, cross white, cross blue or black?

12:42Speaker 12:Parents.

12:42Speaker 3:I think black shorts, black shorts, okay, my shorts?

12:49Speaker 9:All right. Do you know she has a friends in area?

12:52Speaker 4:She does, but she doesn't know where they live.

12:55Speaker 9:She doesn't know where she live.

12:56Speaker 4:Okay, I asked all of them.

12:59Speaker 16:Okay, sometime is this like, did she like have any places that you guys know that she would usually be at any friend's house, any places that like she used to hang out?

13:10Speaker 9:No, not typically okay.

13:13Speaker 10:Yeah, uh wait one hundred and ten for hundred, hair color flung long like that, okay, eye color blue.

13:28Speaker 9:Does she have any marking arn like any scars or.

13:30Speaker 15:Anything distinctive beauty mark on her face.

13:33Speaker 10:On her face, on the face, like below the nose, the nose.

13:35Speaker 15:Yeah, like righting that area there.

13:37Speaker 9:It's it's very distinctive.

13:38Speaker 2:You'd know it if you saw her.

13:40Speaker 3:Well.

13:40Speaker 5:One officer was talking to Mattie's parents another was speaking with staff at the church where she was dropped off. That morning, Surveillance showed a child sitting in a parking lot for about ten minutes before getting up and walking away. After that, the trail disappeared. At that point, investigators were still working through possibilities, including one that seemed plausible that Maddie may have left on her own.

14:08Speaker 11:It's possible that she came here and sat in the parking lot.

14:16Speaker 4:For a while.

14:18Speaker 11:HiT's blurry video, but it looks like I was a child sitting right there, and she's sitting The people here said that they were adamant they see her on the property, But like I said, it's a blurry video, and I don't see her getting into anybody's car in the video, I see you're sitting on property for going to take ten minutes and then walking off property. I don't know which way she went from there.

14:44Speaker 5:The video was blurred, he said, but clearly he showed a child lingering for a bit and then walking away. Could it have been Maddie? There were signs, even messages and comments about wanting to leave, about going off on her own, living in the woods when she turned thirteen. Why the Woods why thirteen, You may ask, who knows? But when don't we all like to just go off the grid from time to time regardless. This half baked plan was something she had confided about with her friend.

15:19Speaker 8:We were walking around the bus loop and she was like, she was talking about a gator and then she was like, you know, it'd.

15:29Speaker 2:Be like so cool to do.

15:30Speaker 4:And I was like what.

15:31Speaker 8:She was like, if we like run into the woods, like you know that trail we'd the scope.

15:35Speaker 1:I was like, yeah.

15:36Speaker 8:She was like, you would be so cool with like go there and just think the little house. And I was like the woods like with like animals stuff, And I was like, where are you going to get this like wooden.

15:45Speaker 19:Stuff to go this house? And she was like, I don't know, if figure it out. And I thought she was joking and stuff because she kind of like E smiled if you did it, so I thought she was joking, but I didn't. I didn't think her seriously.

15:57Speaker 8:And then when I found she was missing, I can deposit in my mind and that to my dad, her saying if she were to run away, go into the woods and find a place and stay there.

16:12Speaker 5:If this were true, if she really had planned to leave. Then where did she go?

16:19Speaker 9:He dropped her off a block away and drove away.

16:22Speaker 2:Okay, did she go to school?

16:25Speaker 9:Was walking in that direction?

16:26Speaker 15:She was rifling through her backpack, sliding, so my thought maybe she was just looking for her headphones before she kind her walking on. Yeah, but she was just coming, you know, shambling over in that direction.

16:36Speaker 2:I looked the same as any.

16:37Speaker 5:Other morning, Okay, But it wasn't just like any other morning. On any other morning, Mattie would have been safe in school all day, but she wasn't. She would have made it home after school like every other day, but she didn't. Whether Maddie ran away or something far worse happened, the truth was that she wasn't just missing. She had vanished. She had just turned into a teenager, and now her family feared she would never make it to adulthood. Mattie Soto had just turned thirteen. She lived in Kissimi, Florida, with her mother, Jennifer Soto, in a condo complex near her school. On the morning of February twenty sixth, twenty twenty four, she was dropped off just a short distance from the school, a walk she had made before and won that at the time didn't seem unusual, but that morning she never made it inside. Hours passed before anyone realized something was wrong. Her family made calls to the school, then to nine point one. By the time deputies arrived that evening, Mattie had already been missing for hours, and no one could say where she had gone after getting out of the car. At first, there were explanations. Maybe

18:31Speaker 5:she left on her own, maybe she wandered off. She had allegedly made comments about wanting to leave, about going off into the woods. When she turned thirteen. Mattie lived with her mother, and she also spent time with her grandmother from the time she was about six. Her mother's boyfriend was also in the picture. Jennifer and Stephen were in an on again, off again relationship for years. For the majority of that time, they lived under the same roof.

19:03Speaker 5:According to Jennifer and other family members, Stephan was like a dad to Maddie and they had a great relationship. But she also had a great relationship with her biological dad and her sister, who lived miles away. If she didn't take off to live in the woods, maybe she took off on a bus or plane to see them. Her friend remembered her preoccupation with getting money for her birthday.

19:29Speaker 8:One section thirteen, I'm going to leave this house and never come back. Why thirteen Because I think because she would always brag. Because I said that I can't wait to my birthday and she was like, are you having a birthday party? I said no, and she was like, oh, I get a home went of money, like five hundred and something dollars on my birthday, you know, like that's like so much money. And I was like, yeah, like I get money, but like not like that. And I don't really like having birthday parties.

19:54Speaker 19:To last birthday party, I have so much drama.

19:57Speaker 9:Then she was like okay.

19:58Speaker 8:She would always talk about getting money for her birthday and I didn't give her money, and I already had given her a gift.

20:07Speaker 4:I brought it to school.

20:09Speaker 8:She kind of got mad that I didn't give her any money or anything, and I was like, I spent money on this and physically give you any money though. And then when we also got there, I was like, how many presents did you get? And then she was like I barely got any money yet, Like I'm kind of mad because I want more money. I think she was waiting to turn thirteen. That way she could get all with her money and go.

20:34Speaker 4:She got to her sister.

20:35Speaker 8:Her dad is in Washington, DC, and I think her sister is too. Her and her sister are close.

20:41Speaker 5:Missing her biological dad and sister weren't the only reasons Maddie may have taken off without telling anyone. Her friend said she didn't always get along with her mom, and she had ADHD and other challenges based something I know.

20:55Speaker 8:I think she kind of just wanted to be free, kind of just not live under Like.

21:04Speaker 5:The word mom or mom's rules was redacted, but that's a reasonable inference that she didn't necessarily want to live under her mom's rules. She had just turned into a teenager.

21:19Speaker 3:Was she like defiant, like didn't like to follow the rules?

21:22Speaker 12:Sort of?

21:22Speaker 10:Yeah, I mean.

21:25Speaker 8:Took her mans if she didn't take her medsin, she's like really crazy and she just thinks she just does so like impulsive.

21:32Speaker 12:Yeah.

21:34Speaker 5:When investigators took a closer look at what actually happened that morning, Mattie's disappearance seemed less like a troubled teenager looking for escape and more like a vulnerable girl who may have been abducted on the morning of Mattie's disappearance, Stephan drove her to school. This wasn't unusual. In fact, they had a routine for the days he took her to school that included stopping at McDonald's. But that day was different. Mattie was more lethargic and slept the whole way.

22:06Speaker 5:She refused breakfast twice.

22:10Speaker 15:Woke up around seven seven fifteen somewhere around there. This is an early start for us, but she had We had talked about getting McDonald's like this beforehand, so we wanted to make good time.

22:22Speaker 2:We did make good time.

22:23Speaker 15:We got out the door maybe seven seven five is maybe, got over to that area. She was asleep in the car most of the time, just snooze until we got there.

22:35Speaker 9:We got to McDonald's.

22:37Speaker 15:We're close to McDonald's.

22:38Speaker 2:I said, you still want it.

22:40Speaker 15:Wasn't interested in the McDonald's anymore, so we continued on and she wanted to be dropped off a little down the ways from the school. She's got this phase that she's been into lately where she was very particularly about what car she seemed getting out of in front of the school.

23:00Speaker 2:I get it, it's an image thing, but that was.

23:05Speaker 15:Sometime probably between eight twenty and eight forty ish, somewhere in there. It was along the stretch of the road that on the right side has all the communities on it before you get to the overpass. You could see the overpass from where it was, so it was on that side, on that stretch of road, and that's where I dropped her off. She said she was going to go wait for her friends. Who's going to find them? And hang out and wait for her friends. And I asked if that was going to be okay. She said, yeah, it's fine. Kids get dropped off early enough as it is.

23:38Speaker 15:It's not totally unusual for that to happen. It's just not usually that early that I dropped her off. Two school runs every once in a while for her.

23:48Speaker 5:Jennifer was happy to have Stephan in her life. He was a huge help to her. He was able to give insight to Jennifer about Maddie's ADHD because he too had ADHD me. According to Stephan, his ADHD was severe. But Jennifer had issues of her own, including bipolar disorder, which she was medicating for. Typically, the medicine would help regulate her moods and her sleep but at times she'd forget to take it or her dose needed to be adjusted. She often didn't sleep well and appreciated that Stephan and Maddie had a solid father daughter like relationship and he could pick up the slack. In this next clip, take particular notice of how she's explaining her behavior that night, as if she's trying to explain away a question that hasn't been asked yet.

24:45Speaker 4:I got home are on ten thirty. I started getting ready for bed myself.

24:50Speaker 3:I started beating and taking my meds to after take meds. When I went to take my meds, I realized, oh my god, I forgot to take my Saturday night's.

24:59Speaker 17:Med which is why I felt so weird, so abnormal, and not myself. Sunday, while I was at work, everyone at work nowders. I was acting different and not being myself like. I couldn't smile in front of the guests. I felt this wave of depression that I hadn't felt in years. It was my bipolar symptoms coming up again that I just I've been medicating.

25:20Speaker 9:Myself for for well.

25:21Speaker 14:Sonny, you took your beds. What meds? If you don't mind me asking what beds do you take, I'm like, ww, does it? Can they put you to sleep deep? Does it helped you fall asleep? Or is it helped regulate you? What kind of happens if you take the beds?

25:32Speaker 4:So they do all of the afolve.

25:35Speaker 3:They make me sleepy, They helped me stay asleep, and they help me function so I'm stable all day.

25:43Speaker 4:They only work well if.

25:44Speaker 3:I've got a good night's sleep, and if I bet in with them the night before when I take them, or the night I take them. It's The medication is called Giadah. Generic brand is called zig Brazo Dome my mess. And then I told him to start getting ready for Bett, to start heading upstairs and get ready to do this old lady of this eleven o'clock has passed for bedtime she used to go to sleep.

26:11Speaker 5:Even by her own account, when Jennifer did take her medication, it didn't just help her sleep, It knocked her out. She described feeling groggy, disoriented, and sometimes not fully aware of what had happened the night before. Sleep was very important to Jennifer in general, so the next morning she remembered Stephan coming into her room to get the dog and take him for a walk before he took Maddie to school because she needed to sleep in and didn't want to take her Stephan confirmed that he took the dog for a walk, and then he said he and Maddie had an early start. Other than Maddie being excessively sleepy and not wanting McDonald's, this was a typical trip to school. Then she just dropped off the radar. Dropping off the radar wouldn't be as easy for Maddie as it would for other students. Her teachers were paying attention.

27:08Speaker 5:She had an IEP Individualized Education Programmer special ED as it used to be known.

27:15Speaker 20:She has been in my class all year round. She's always very sweet, and she's struggles of it. I mean, all my kids hit kinds of clids, so there are the students who are struggling. She was on my door decorating team. She was actually chosen to be my student of the week from two of us ago for helping us win our door decorating competition with our friends. She had been reading a book a couple months ago and it had kissing in it, and it was a graphic novel and she was like scandalized that there was a kissing scene.

27:44Speaker 5:Seventh grade was the year sex education was introduced in this school system, so it wasn't surprising the kids would make a big deal about a graphic novel. But she also remembered something Mattie's friends told her after Mattie went missing.

28:00Speaker 20:I was shocked when the kids were telling me about to live in the woods conversation. I was shocked to hear something like that. She was very excited about her birthday.

28:09Speaker 5:She had just been made Student of the week. She was quiet, she struggled, and she was happy about her birthday. These were descriptions officers heard over and over, but they also heard that Maddie had a lot of anxiety, not just typical worries, but panic attacks. This is the school counselor.

28:32Speaker 21:When she has come to me, it's often been those feelings of panic. She's come to me in the middle of class or during lunchtime, just feeling really panicked, kind of heavy.

28:44Speaker 4:Breathing, feeling really overwhelmed.

28:47Speaker 21:And when we've had our conversations about what's going on, what's making you feel this way, I've got in responses saying, well, it's my anxiety. Sometimes I don't know, I'm just really overstimulated with all that noise in the cafeteria.

29:02Speaker 5:But she also talked about things being stressful at home. Her mother was usually the.

29:08Speaker 21:Focal point, and when I pressed about that, it seemed to be things along the lines of, well, she gets upset that I'm forgetful or that I don't clean.

29:16Speaker 4:My room the way she wants me to, and.

29:18Speaker 21:We talked about what that does to affect her, And she says, yelling that makes me get over stimulated, and then I can't respond to her in a way that she wants me to. So we discussed strategies for kind of calming herself down.

29:34Speaker 5:No when at school was raising any real red flags. A lot of this seemed pretty normal for a seventh grade girl with hormones and ADHD.

29:44Speaker 9:She also has an IP Okay, so do you think maybe I.

29:48Speaker 22:Always thought that it was partly because she struggles with learning, so I always thought his struggle with learning also are a little bit with drawn and having her time was seen.

29:59Speaker 5:So yeah, there were struggles, a mom who had her own mental health issues, a broken family ADHD, but none of it really pointed to a child who was about to disappear. But investigators had to consider every possibility, whether she left on her own, met someone, or was picked up along the way. None of these explanations held up against the evidence. There was no footage of Maddie getting out of a car, no camera capturing the moment she was dropped off. The only video investigators could locate came from the area near the church, showing a figure believed to be Mattie sitting briefly before getting up and walking away.

30:41Speaker 5:After that, the trail stops. There were no more sightings, no confirmed movement, and no indication she'd made it any farther towards a school. There is no evidence that she ever met anyone, no sign that she left the area, and nothing to suggest she went anywhere at all. The timeline doesn't extend, It just comes to a dead end. The last person to see Maddie was Stephan, so detectives had no choice but to dig deeper into his version of what happened.

31:16Speaker 15:They're saying, Okay, let her out, have a good day. I love you, thanks, love you too. And I turned around and was driving away and was watching her. In my review, Mary and make sure that she was former supposed to go, and she was moving in that direction, but she was rummaging around in her backpack or something when I assumed it was probably headphones or something like that, but find out literal that she forgot her phone here, so she may have been rummaging for her phone, but she was still kind of making her way towards towards that direction, So it looked okay, look like any other day, and I just continued on.

31:51Speaker 5:After dropping Maddie off, Stephan tells investigators he left the area and went to a nearby vape shop, but it wasn't opened yet, so he says he returned home briefly, Jennifer was just getting up because she had slept in. They hung out for a bit, and then he went back to the vape shop once it opened. From there, his account becomes harder to follow. He describes driving along Highway one ninety two, stopping at multiple places, including a comic shop and a Target. So, yeah, that's what an adult male is doing on a typical weekday, shopping for comic books and weed, maybe stopping by Target. We are so cooked as a society. Then, at some point during that time, he says he got a flat tire. He pulled over and changed it using a spear. He explained apologetically that the flat tire caused him to fall behind, so he missed the opportunity to pick Maddie up from school with Jennifer, as they had planned on its own.

32:53Speaker 5:None of that stood out as unusual, running air INDs, losing track of time, even getting a flat tire. These are the kind of things that happened to everyone every day. But it created a stretch of time that wasn't clearly accounted for, a window where his movements relied almost completely on his own recollection, and his recollection wasn't great because remember he has ADHD. Also, so far, no footage had confirmed where he was during that period, No independent witnesses placed him at any of those stops. As cooperative as Stephan was, he gave a series of locations, times, and explanations that became harder to pin down the more they tried.

33:42Speaker 1:It doesn't make sense, make sense.

33:45Speaker 15:I apologize for that. Trying to help you out the best I can and bag.

33:51Speaker 1:Right. So like.

33:53Speaker 23:If you drop her off her on eight p forty, let's say give her take ten minutes. You make it to the shop around nine, the smoke shop, and you sit there and wait for a couple minutes for it to open. You said you waited for maybe five or ten minutes, right, Does it make sense that you're still there at ten o'clock.

34:14Speaker 2:I was there at ten o'clock.

34:16Speaker 1:Okay, So what did you do before that?

34:19Speaker 15:I dropped her off and I made my way over not a direct route, but I made my way over there.

34:27Speaker 1:Did you stop anywhere on your way to the smoke shop?

34:32Speaker 2:I don't think so.

34:36Speaker 23:Do you have problems with your memory that you can't recall what you did?

34:41Speaker 15:I'm extremely ADHD. I'm sorry, so just details start to get fuzzy after a while. Even the times I'm giving you are my best guesstimates here. Didn't have my phone with me at the time, so I wasn't aware of exactly what time. There's no time on your car transpiring. There probably is, but not my car.

35:00Speaker 2:It's my parents' car.

35:02Speaker 5:ADHD, no phone, unfamiliar car.

35:06Speaker 14:I mean.

35:07Speaker 5:ADHD is a real thing, don't get me wrong. And it does affect memory and the ability to recall details or keep track of time, all of those things. But it may also be a really good cover or someone who's trying to hide something, and that's when the investigation started to shift away from what Stephan said and towards what could actually be verified. He gave the investigators every little detail, but he couldn't account for big gaps of time. And while Jennifer corroborated his version of events, she was also unable to explain gaps of time, probably because she was asleep or at the doctor's office, maybe getting medicines readjusted.

35:52Speaker 5:So investigators turned to the one thing that doesn't rely on memory or even coherence, his phone. His phone showed him going home, leaving again, and doubling back in a pattern that doesn't match the simple errands he described. What should have been a simple morning became a series of trips and changes in direction. He couldn't really explain. Jennifer corroborated Stephan's morning pretty sure.

36:21Speaker 1:He called me around ten eighteen.

36:22Speaker 3:What did he call you for?

36:23Speaker 18:To let me know that if he didn't go to McDonald's planned. He had asked her multiple times if she wanted to stop at mcdonald'scause that was the plan of the night before, that they were going to wake up early. He was gonna take her to McDonald's. Do like a special McDonald's breakfast and then drop her off at school early because she wanted to get there a little early. But on his way to school, she was very sleepy and wanted to sleep in the car, and she said she did not want to do McDonald's. She just wanted to be dropped off.

36:49Speaker 1:Okay.

36:49Speaker 17:Also to let me know.

36:50Speaker 18:That he left his phone at home because I had called Hi multiple times in the video. He had left his phone at home by accident. He had went to the Babe Shop but they didn't open on time, so he had waited for quite a while in front of the Babe shop. They didn't open, so he left and came back and we hung out a little bit, and then I think he left again to the Babe shop.

37:12Speaker 1:To go by what he did.

37:15Speaker 5:Okay, detectives already knew something they weren't telling Jennifer, something they had already discussed with Stephen. His car was caught on camera with a passenger in it for longer than he admitted, including turning around en route to circle back to the apartment because he forgot a keyfob.

37:36Speaker 23:When you came back to get your keyfob, what did you do when you got here?

37:44Speaker 2:Yeah, sorry, got key fob, ran back out again.

37:47Speaker 1:Okay? Where did you park?

37:51Speaker 2:Right right up here? I think?

37:54Speaker 1:Okay? How long would you say you were inside your apartment.

37:56Speaker 15:For literally long enough to run in, grind the falling, and come back out, so okay, And.

38:02Speaker 1:Then what did you do? What did you do when you came back up.

38:07Speaker 15:Got back in the car, and went back on went back on the morning mission?

38:12Speaker 1:Okay?

38:13Speaker 23:The camera has you in the complex for twelve minutes?

38:20Speaker 1:Does that seem about right?

38:22Speaker 13:Yeah?

38:22Speaker 15:Coming into the complex, driving around, parking, getting the fog, coming back out sounds about right.

38:31Speaker 1:Okay. And then you leave?

38:33Speaker 23:What time would you say you dropped her off at the school or not at the school, but in the area.

38:38Speaker 15:My estimate was sometime between eight twenty and eight forty Yeah, okay. The camera has you leaving the complex at eight thirty one thirty one, okay, so it must have been closer to eight forty then roundabout, I think.

38:54Speaker 1:Okay.

38:54Speaker 23:So, like, let's say you drop her off at eight forty, we don't see your car coming back south until ten o'clock in the morning, So what are you doing between eight forty and.

39:05Speaker 1:Ten o'clock.

39:08Speaker 2:Cruising around a little bit?

39:09Speaker 1:Okay?

39:10Speaker 23:But I asked you earlier, you know, like what you were doing, and you said you were there for like five or ten minutes and then you came back home.

39:17Speaker 15:Yeah, I went to the smoke shop, like I said, but I was probably I may have been reandering around the area but made my way home.

39:30Speaker 23:Okay, But I'm asking you earlier, right, And even like the first time we talked to you, you're not telling us that you're like, you know, just cruising the area like you're coming home. So I need to be able to explain to my supervisors why there's such a time gup.

39:49Speaker 5:Stephan tried to make the return to the apartments sound routine. He forgot a key, fop, he said, so he doubled back, ran inside, and came right back out. But investigators were already seeing cracks in that story. The stop took longer than he claimed, the timeline didn't hold, and while he was back at the complex, surveillance caught him doing some things things that made the forgot my fob explanation seem maybe well like a cover.

40:26Speaker 1:Did she go inside with you?

40:28Speaker 2:No, she was in the car, so she was asleep.

40:30Speaker 1:Where in the car passengers the front seat? Correct?

40:34Speaker 23:Okay, just she had any point going the back of the vehicle, like in the back seat. So she was in the front the whole time, awake or asleep?

40:42Speaker 2:She was asleep?

40:43Speaker 1:Okay?

40:46Speaker 23:How was she positioned in the front seat?

40:49Speaker 2:Leaned back in the seat? It's kind of punked out and happened.

40:55Speaker 1:Where was her head in relation to the seat.

41:00Speaker 15:Against the seat acting against it? Was a seat leaning back or she was leaning back as she had leaned the seat back so that she could reply.

41:09Speaker 5:In those questions. Seemed kind of like who cares questions?

41:14Speaker 22:Right?

41:15Speaker 5:This all took place before he dropped her off at school. According to Stephan, they had been up early, Maddie was tired, she slept on the way. She didn't want McDonald's. They were making good time, and he realized he had forgotten the keyfop, so he just drove right back to the complex. She was still asleep in the passenger seat. The problem is, well, the problem for Stephan was that detectives weren't just looking at the one stop back at the complex. The more they reviewed the surveillance footage, the more they realized the same car Stephan was driving kept appearing different locations, different times, but every time the passenger looked exactly the same, Her position never changed. She wasn't sleeping, she was already dead.

42:12Speaker 5:Stephan was driving around for much of the morning with a corpse in the passenger seat, trying to pass her off as sleeping. Maddie never made it to school that day because she never got out of the car. On the morning of her thirteenth birthday party, Mattie Soto would have started another day in her life, school friends, homework. Instead, she disappeared and never made it to school. What started as a missing child case was now falling apart, right in front of her mother's boyfriend, Stephan Stearns, who was the last person to see her. Stephan said it was a normal morning, a school drop off, a few errands, a stop at a vape shop. But the more detectives checked his story, the less it held. The timeline shifted, the details changed, surveillance exposed gaps he just couldn't explain, and whatever hope was left started fading fast. This was no longer a search for a missing girl. It was a search for a missing corpse. Detectives had to break the news to Jennifer, so they showed her a picture of the Lincoln in the driveway at about seven thirty.

44:06Speaker 18:That's Mattie as sleep in the car.

44:08Speaker 9:Mattie's not a sleeping What do you mean do you believe?

44:14Speaker 1:Do you believe Maddie's asleep?

44:16Speaker 13:There?

44:19Speaker 2:She did?

44:20Speaker 9:I don't know.

44:23Speaker 1:We don't know where she's at.

44:25Speaker 5:Jennifer takes the picture in her hand, scrunches her brow and looks closer at her daughter.

44:33Speaker 1:It's a find way for her to be laying down, sneapy.

44:37Speaker 24:Right now. We are probably going to start working this case.

44:42Speaker 9:As a homicide.

44:44Speaker 24:We believe he possibly has done something too Maddie, and we want to know where he would possibly go.

44:52Speaker 5:Surveillance picks up his silver Lincoln again and again that morning. At seven thirty five, it's at the trash car. Stephan gets out and throws a white trash bag inside. Maddie is still visible in the front passenger seat, her head tilted to the left, mouth hanging open, seat belted in. At eight nineteen, the car is seen at the front gate. At eight thirty one, it leaves through the back gate, and in every one of those videos, Maddie is still in the same position. A sleeping thirteen year old doesn't usually remain frozen in the same posture across multiple stops, multiple gates, multiple movements through a complex, but a dead body does and then the camera is at the compactor made the morning even darker. Near the tread from a tire matching Stephan's vehicle, they recover a white trash bag containing Maddie's backpack, a white croc and her school issued laptop.

46:01Speaker 5:So while Stephan is telling detectives about McDonald's, a vape shop and a forgotten keyfob oh and a girl sleeping quietly in the front seat, the evidence is telling a very different story. The car didn't just stay in the Kissimi area. Investigators later traced Stephan's vehicle out towards Saint Cloud about thirty minutes away. License plate readers and traffic cameras followed the Lincoln to Hickory Tree Road, and by the time the car was seen coming back, it had his spare tire on it, And this time Stephan wasn't lying.

46:38Speaker 5:At some point that morning he really did have a flat tire. Someone saw him pulled over on the side of the road coming home from one ninety two on Hickory Tree.

46:51Speaker 9:I observed that great vehicle Lincoln is it okay?

46:56Speaker 13:With a flack rear tire.

46:58Speaker 24:He was down inside the road, okay, stooping down in the back looking at the tire, which I found odd.

47:06Speaker 1:Okay, that's uh, normally I just blowed off.

47:10Speaker 5:That's around twelve thirty the guy. I didn't see Maddie in the passenger seat because Stephan had already moved her, possibly to her final location by then. It's plausible he got a flat tire while off roading and off loading the body. Just three hours earlier. Surveillance footage from a parking garage near the vape shop caught him in the act of moving the body. Stepan backs his vehicle into a parking space by the stairs. He exits his vehicle and walks towards the rear. Then he opens the trunk.

47:44Speaker 5:At nine am, Stephan is seen placing Maddie, who was wearing a green sweatshirt, into the trunk of his vehicle. He then exits the parking garage and heads onto one Two detectives don't tell tell him about their mounting evidence. They're still feeling a map. When he's questioned details about his timeline, his answers are very polite and he's sticking to his story, his vague story.

48:15Speaker 2:I'm so sorry, that's okay.

48:17Speaker 15:I know the details are important, and just the way our brains work with ADHD is those things can get fuzzy.

48:25Speaker 1:Are you in any medication I supposed to be?

48:28Speaker 15:I have not been medicated lately, so I'm just I'm not a morning person. I'm very time blind on the best of days, and forget so I understand that none of that is helpful in this case.

48:43Speaker 2:I'm forty sorry.

48:44Speaker 1:We're gonna have the apartment secured for the rest of the night.

48:49Speaker 2:Okay, Why so the investigation is not gonna happen tonight?

48:54Speaker 1:It is?

48:56Speaker 5:He asks whether the investigation will still happen that night. It would, it would, but that didn't stop Stephan from continuing his movements when the interviews ended, because before sunrise, while the search was still very much alive, he takes Jennifer's car and leaves the hotel, heading out towards Saint Cloud around three am. Then later that morning, he takes off again, this time much farther. Records show Jennifer's Nissan traveling to Northport. Later, Jennifer would say he came back with a wah wah Cup and claimed he'd just gone to one ninety two. He never told her where he'd actually been, which is important because Northport isn't around the corner.

49:41Speaker 5:It's two hours away.

49:44Speaker 3:Because at one point he moved close to where his parents live right now.

49:48Speaker 4:In they lived in Northport, order at Sarazorba County.

49:53Speaker 5:You caught that right. The one place these killers always seemed to head towards after killing is back to mommy and daddy, and in this case, that was Northport, Florida, where Stephan's parents lived.

50:07Speaker 2:Obviously you lived down in Northport.

50:09Speaker 9:Yes, I'm just gonna shoot today.

50:12Speaker 14:I don't respect from you.

50:13Speaker 13:And there's a storage unit down there.

50:16Speaker 2:Yeah, I have a storage You have a storage unit.

50:18Speaker 15:Is that your son's storage unit or is that your at your storage unit?

50:21Speaker 1:You know?

50:22Speaker 9:Does he have access to it?

50:23Speaker 13:No?

50:23Speaker 2:I have the keys of fat Were you aware that?

50:27Speaker 11:Did your son come visit you on Monday morning?

50:31Speaker 9:This Monday?

50:32Speaker 14:Yeah?

50:32Speaker 13:He left?

50:33Speaker 2:Say okay.

50:35Speaker 5:Stephan's dad sounds confused because he is. You see, Stephan had been living with his parents for a few months after another breakup with Jennifer, but they were still on good terms and because of his strong bond with Maddie. Jen invited him back for Maddie's birthday. So his dad is talking about his son leaving on Sunday, that had to kissing me for Mattie's birthday. He doesn't know yet that just three days later, Stephan would quietly make that same drive back without telling anyone. It would become apparent later in the investigation that Stephan had traveled to his parents place in Northport because he had a hard drive there containing incriminating material, let's say. And as if the Northport trip wasn't incriminating enough, what they found on his phone was worse yet, but he had tried to erase it.

51:37Speaker 4:When I saw him at the house, everything was normal. We were chatting, We're talking, he was acting normal. He was sitting in my computer chair snuffing around on his phone while we were hanging out. He mentioned something along the lines of, oh, man, I've been avoiding this phone update for a really long time. I should probably update it now.

51:56Speaker 9:And I said, do it.

51:57Speaker 4:Don't avoid it, just get.

51:58Speaker 2:It over with.

52:00Speaker 4:And he updates his phone and then tells, me, oh my god, I don't know what button I just pressed, but I just factory reset my entire phone, And I said, how the hell's that happened?

52:13Speaker 5:Well, that happens quite simply. When you have something to hide, you deliberately go to your phone settings, find the reset tab and tap it to erase all the content. And that's what Stephan thought he did. But a computer scientist, he was not so.

52:35Speaker 3:Earlier that day, I think detective Hot came or somebody came and asked Stefan for his cell phone, if you would willingly give it up so they can look at it, or if they would need a warrant, And.

52:50Speaker 4:I remember him saying, should I have asked a warrant? Should I have? And I'm like, no, If you guys don't need to hide, give him your fucking phone.

52:56Speaker 3:And then when you guys came in the evening and you guys told us to wait outside, and we waited in my car, he started getting very anxious and very panicky, going, I want my phone back, I want my phone back, And I said, listen, at this point, it's their phone. It's there for fucking ever. I don't give a shit. We will buy you a new phone. It doesn't matter anymore. Whatever they need, they need, like, let them look at it. And he's like, I just want my phone back, and I'm just like, do you are you trying to make yourself more suspicious, because like you're if you were to go to band your phone back right now, that would look suspicious as fuck, Like what are you doing? I'm thinking he's just getting impatient because he's bored and wants to plant his phone. And at one point he takes my phone to start playing with it. I give it up and I said, here, play on my phone.

53:43Speaker 12:Have fun.

53:45Speaker 5:Just two days after Maddie went missing, detectives had Stephan's phone and all the evidence on it, which was quite a bit. They found graphic pictures and videos of him sexually abusing thirteen year old Maddie Soda. In one picture, Stephan's face is visible and his tongue is on Maddie's nipple. It was explicit, undeniable, and extremely disturbing, and it had been saved among an album of child sexual abuse material. They didn't just find one picture or one scene, they found hundreds, basically a typical redditor's stash. These pictures pointed to repetition duration, a system of abuse. Later reporting would describe roughly seventeen hundred images linked to Stephan's accounts stretching back at least two years. So the phone did not just prove what Stephan had done. It showed that he had been doing it for a very long time, and the investigator matched the abuser in those files to Stephen's own body parts if you catch my drift. Reports about the pictures describe a bright pinkish area below the head of the penis and a black mark or freckle on it, also visible in some pictures. Yuck. They also collected penile

55:26Speaker 5:swabs from them, which I'm sure was quite humiliating. By then, detectives weren't just looking at abuse images. They were connecting the penis in those images directly to Stefan Stearns. Imagine that being your job. Now that detectives had Stephan's phone, Jennifer was forced to reconcile with their understanding of who he really was.

55:53Speaker 9:Like, I look back at.

55:54Speaker 3:It now, I'm just like, he was fucking lying, he was fucking taking. What else has he been lying to me about? I know he's like a master liar manipulator because he's done He's done it to his parents, and he's told me and shown me the lies he's done to his parents. But I don't know why. I never thought, not me.

56:13Speaker 5:That would be because Jennifer forgot this stark truth that people will always show you who they really are if you pay close enough attention.

56:25Speaker 3:I told him to call his dad because I had a feeling something. Y'all knew something, and it was gonna come down on him. And I'm just like, they're focusing on the wrong person. They have the wrong person. In my head, I'm convinced you guys are just did you have the wrong person?

56:42Speaker 5:He was definitely a wrong person, just not the wrong person for these crimes. But what happened to Maddie was not an accident at all. Jennifer asked detectives, how the hell does that happen? Well, the detectives wanted that question answered also, and they wanted to know if Jennifer was complicit.

57:08Speaker 9:I don't know what you want me to say or do or.

57:12Speaker 2:I just want my daughter back.

57:15Speaker 24:And this is exactly what I was just talking about. We are literally having a conversation right now about Maddie possibly being dead.

57:27Speaker 9:Yeah, and.

57:31Speaker 1:You have yet to shed it to here.

57:33Speaker 5:By now, detectives know Maddie is dead. They know Stephan is responsible, but the questions that are about to get a lot darker are these, why did he kill her? And how does this kind of sexual abuse happen for years in a home with someone you say you trusted with your life. Jennifer may have trusted Stephan with her life, but Maddie was the one who paid for and what they're about to uncover is far worse than how she died.