Found Deceased FL - Madeline Soto, 13, Missing Child Alert, 13500 blk Town Loop Blvd, Orlando, 26 Feb 2024 *arrest* #2

[Sjöberg]

I wanna know at what point bio dad was notified his daughter was absent from school and now considered a missing child??

I have missed that: do we know that he was notified at all? Or that he had any custody?

 

[SimplyCass]

I wonder if Le have asked for access to Maddie’s friends texts /social media exchanges with Maddie from THEIR devices to compare against what hers looked like on her end? Some apps you can delete something on your end but it’s still visible to someone else you’re communicating with (eg: fb messenger I think you can delete for you or for everyone). Might end up a very interesting part of the investigation.

For Messenger, 'unsending' the message will remove it for everyone, but you can still 'report' the message to deter people from hurling abuse then deleting the evidence.

I’d like to know if police have reviewed or are likely to review Maddie’s school attendance history over the years? Any long periods of “illness”? Any pattern of days missed? Days late? Those are the days before which I’d be looking for any possible evidence of abuse be it SA, a fight between anyone in the household that involved her or not etc. How about any behaviors noted at school? Or days when maybe a teacher noted she was acting or dressed differently? Maybe suddenly she stopped caring about her work or her appearance or became withdrawn?

I hope they find everything they can and no only nail the b******(s?) who are responsible but also consider making a training excercise out of it for school staff. Eg: if you notice X, Y, Z these are good reasons to be concerned!

This would be interesting to know. Teachers are 'mandated reporters' and are supposed to report any signs of suspected abuse or neglect. FL DCS guide

 

[MassGuy]

The body language expert’s take on JS in this video is really interesting…

Bit of a recap of the whole thing, which I think was fantastic:

Vinnie doesn’t think that accidental crime scene photo release is going to have any impact on this case.

As for his alleged Disney employment. Vinnie says the Disney statement doesn’t address if he ever worked there, or worked for a contractor or something (same thing several of us said).

Body language expert called out SS immediately when she saw the video initially. Said they needed to look at him closely. Deep breaths are manufactured. Out of sync with emotional affect. “Eye blocking,” he looked away. No tears. He’s pushing emotions to appear like he’s sad and worried. Vinnie is surprised he’d even appear on tv.

As for him being in the background behind JS. He was watching the environment and her. He made noise when he came in. Agitated. When she said she went to pick Maddie up at school he started stretching and cracking his knuckles. Tension is built up, he’s stressed.

She thinks the whole story from JS is fabricated. It’s disjointed. Both involved, she’s covering for him.

In the video where JS is shaking:

She’s in fight or flight. Not normal nervousness. Shivering. See that when someone is in trouble. Searching for answers. Pauses, loses thoughts. When she says she’s not sure of what she can say, it’s odd and almost like she’s talking to an attorney.

Compared behavior to Casey Anthony who used to recycle past events. So this expert thinks mom did see her daughter walk across the street near the school on a past occasion, just not that day.

She is betting her career on mother being involved in the coverup. Says that there was conflict between mother and daughter, perhaps regarding the birthday party. No emotion from mother. No remorse.

So she thinks like we do, mom involved but not the killer.

 

[Pruddennce]

Well, she couldn’t have emailed the teacher from the car while driving around looking for Maddie if she didn’t have a device from which to do so right? Or did she go home and use a device from home?

Ive wondered if Madeline had her own laptop besides the school issued or shared one with her mom.

a time warp: no timeline when Madeline was taken to the party or came home from the party. no information at all. she just had a happy time and was so happy, loved her gifts, was so happy, nothing unusual, she was so happy. then went right to bed.

and how about this time warp:

two media interviews, and not once does she mention anything about herself, her daughter or even the demon inside that apartment waking up to start the day. the morning began in the car.

no interaction was relayed. clear avoidance of the morning. in fact, the evening was bordering on silent nite.

gaps and time warps. IMO, well for SS, LIES. for her.....waiting to hear.

 

[Curious Me]

The video of JS comforting SS makes me feel physically sick. Your flesh and blood is missing, possibly "taken", and you are worrying about comforting a guy who you have only known a couple years. Who cares if he is upset, your child is out there somewhere, he isn't important in these moments. I say all this as an incredibly biased individual who had both parents put their new partners before me and my siblings.​

I'm so sorry that happened to you, @KooshBall. I thought that comforting scene on the news video made me ill too, and it was extremely telling. Like... What's important to you at this critical time? ​

...like lack of all these little high and low nuances in voice when we speak, lack of emotion so to say....

Body Language Expert says "no emotion". She also says she saw something in other videos that as a Body Language Expert she thought revealed some kind of high conflict, around the birthday party, but also in other video clips expert says she thinks there was a high conflict between the mother and daughter, maybe anger. Body Language Expert said it, not me. (nodding)

Watch it here:​

Murder of Madeline Soto: Three Big Things Happening In the Case

 

[photographer4]

My apologies if this sounds crude or morbid, but it depends on the method of killing. We know he disposed of her on the same day, so unless she was shot or stabbed, etc, what bodily fluids would have been there? A body is not decomposing that fast for other fluids.

 JMO

Your post made me remember the post mortem stages of mortis. What Are the Stages of Rigor Mortis? 6 Stages

In order to have propped her up in the car as was suggested in this media outlet:

CCTV of missing little girl in car was her 'propped up' corpse driven by suspect

The body of missing 13-year-old Madeline Soto was found in a wooded area four days after the teenager was reported missing - Stephan Sterns, her mum's boyfriend is deemed the 'prime suspect'

www.mirror.co.uk

…then she probably was placed in the car fairly soon post mortem in my opinion as a total layperson. If he’d tried to do this when she had stiffened up, he would have probably had a particularly difficult time of it.

I imagine the autopsy will show whether she had any post mortem injuries that may have happened during the moving her stage.

 

[photographer4]

If house is the place of murder would JS be allowed to stay there until investigation is complete?

Doubtful. I wanted to know where she and SS were when police searched the house simultaneously as another officer was looking at images and video on SS device and having his officers at the scene confirm the clothing etc at the house. (Per updated info released by LE and shared up thread somewhere by I think @MassGuy?).

What was their reaction to being asked / told (? Can’t recall if le executed a search warrant or had consent to search?) that the house was about to be searched?

What else might police have found at that search? Signs of a scuffle? Signs of a clean up? Signs of staging attempts? mOO

 

[photographer4]

Motive……the sexual abuse? Did she or was she going to tell? Did she fight back or bite him this time? <modsnip> I’m impatiently waiting to see why !!!

Well, in the SS is bawling like a baby over Maddie interview, you can see a small mark on his hand if you pause at the right spot as he blabbers away. Could it have been caused by Maddie? I hope police know!

 

[MassGuy]

Doubtful. I wanted to know where she and SS were when police searched the house simultaneously as another officer was looking at images and video on SS device and having his officers at the scene confirm the clothing etc at the house. (Per updated info released by LE and shared up thread somewhere by I think @MassGuy?).

What was their reaction to being asked / told (? Can’t recall if le executed a search warrant or had consent to search?) that the house was about to be searched?

What else might police have found at that search? Signs of a scuffle? Signs of a clean up? Signs of staging attempts? mOO

I wouldn’t be surprised if both of them were being interviewed at the station when the house was being searched.

He was arrested shortly after, and she was free to go. For now…

 

[photographer4]

Thank you! That makes sense but I have rhetorical questions that are practical but indelicate.

If the confidence that she was dead came from video where she appeared propped in the car deceased, wouldn’t you have to look *really dead* for them to notice that? I really wonder what they saw that they could draw that much confidence from.

Pallor mortis? Dead skin tone is vastly different to a living person’s.

 

[photographer4]

If that were the situation, why would she lie about when she last saw her daughter?

She may well be manipulative and hoping it all plays out this way? Idk. I cannot work out why she’s told such conflicting things to various news organizations and Le.

 

[photographer4]

Yeah, that's precisely why I have a hard time believing the video alone could prove that. We know that surveillance footage can be all over the place in terms of quality. But even if you had a really, really, good one, I just don't see how they could have made that determination from that. Who’s to say she wasn't just sleeping, even if she was in an awkward position?

Well, we heard on Grey Hughes from a former roomie that he had some recordings of the roomie’s gf that I think were not consented to by her. Is it possible he set up some sort of video surveillance system at the house and it was discovered by Le and had captured some evidence of something inside the house?

Eg: Amazon sells spy cams. Motion or sound activated. They sometimes look like and work like ordinary objects like alarm clocks, wall clocks, wall plugs for phones or pens etc). Very discrete and easy to access either live (in some cases from a device like a phone) or review later (pull a memory card or download a drive from it).

If they suspected he may have done this / used those they may have used devices to locate hidden cams / audio recorders. They may have found an audio of a fight or a scuffle or an accident. Or they may have found video of him removing her body from inside the house. They could have all sorts of things from a device or devices such as these if he used them.

Note: above is my opinion on what police may have found to confirm the girl was dead before 8:19am and is NOT factual. But it won’t shock me if we find out later he had such devices in use in the house.

 

[photographer4]

I have missed that: do we know that he was notified at all? Or that he had any custody?

Well, at some point he had to be notified by someone, surely? I know he was because of something I saw on social media that can’t be brought here. But I don’t know when or how he was advised.

 

[photographer4]

Ive wondered if Madeline had her own laptop besides the school issued or shared one with her mom.

a time warp: no timeline when Madeline was taken to the party or came home from the party. no information at all. she just had a happy time and was so happy, loved her gifts, was so happy, nothing unusual, she was so happy. then went right to bed.

and how about this time warp:

two media interviews, and not once does she mention anything about herself, her daughter or even the demon inside that apartment waking up to start the day. the morning began in the car.

no interaction was relayed. clear avoidance of the morning. in fact, the evening was bordering on silent nite.

gaps and time warps. IMO, well for SS, LIES. for her.....waiting to hear.

Mom also didn’t talk about how much she loved her kid or make any sort of plea to the public for info. Didn’t address Maddie in her media interviews in case she was watching.

She did say Maddie was considered autistic until another assessment said she has AdHD Almost like she wanted people to believe her daughter was not capable of independence even for a short period of time (didn’t know her own address?????).

 

[Litig8r]

Bit of a recap of the whole thing, which I think was fantastic:

Vinnie doesn’t think that accidental crime scene photo release is going to have any impact on this case.

As for his alleged Disney employment. Vinnie says the Disney statement doesn’t address if he ever worked there, or worked for a contractor or something (same thing several of us said).

Body language expert called out SS immediately when she saw the video initially. Said they needed to look at him closely. Deep breaths are manufactured. Out of sync with emotional affect. “Eye blocking,” he looked away. No tears. He’s pushing emotions to appear like he’s sad and worried. Vinnie is surprised he’d even appear on tv.

As for him being in the background behind JS. He was watching the environment and her. He made noise when he came in. Agitated. When she said she went to pick Maddie up at school he started stretching and cracking his knuckles. Tension is built up, he’s stressed.

She thinks the whole story from JS is fabricated. It’s disjointed. Both involved, she’s covering for him.

In the video where JS is shaking:

She’s in fight or flight. Not normal nervousness. Shivering. See that when someone is in trouble. Searching for answers. Pauses, loses thoughts. When she says she’s not sure of what she can say, it’s odd and almost like she’s talking to an attorney.

Compared behavior to Casey Anthony who used to recycle past events. So this expert thinks mom did see her daughter walk across the street near the school on a past occasion, just not that day.

She is betting her career on mother being involved in the coverup. Says that there was conflict between mother and daughter, perhaps regarding the birthday party. No emotion from mother. No remorse.

So she thinks like we do, mom involved but not the killer.

@MassGuy, you’re the best at summing it all up! I watched this vid and also thought it was great. Thanks for the great summary!

 

[Litig8r]

Your post made me remember the post mortem stages of mortis. What Are the Stages of Rigor Mortis? 6 Stages

In order to have propped her up in the car as was suggested in this media outlet:

CCTV of missing little girl in car was her 'propped up' corpse driven by suspect

The body of missing 13-year-old Madeline Soto was found in a wooded area four days after the teenager was reported missing - Stephan Sterns, her mum's boyfriend is deemed the 'prime suspect'

www.mirror.co.uk

…then she probably was placed in the car fairly soon post mortem in my opinion as a total layperson. If he’d tried to do this when she had stiffened up, he would have probably had a particularly difficult time of it.

I imagine the autopsy will show whether she had any post mortem injuries that may have happened during the moving her stage.

Excellent information on rigor mortis and the different stages. I’ve thought the stages of rigor might be how LE was able to determine she was dead in the car. There could have been stiffness, discoloration from blood pooling or draining to different parts of the body, changes in facial expression (where stiffness first happens) that made it appear obvious to LE that she was already gone. SS in all his “brilliance” (read: stupidity) probably didn’t consider any of this when placing her in the car.

 

[NewMommy09]

Yes, that can happen, but not always.

I have seen many deaths over my 40+ years in my own family. Never did any of them lose bowels or bladder fluids upon death. Granted they all passed of natural causes or cancer and not murder, but, IMO, it would likely depend on 1) manner of someone's death and 2) what may be in their system at time of death. Was the bladder full, bowel full, etc.

I was a nurse for 10 years and worked in a long term care facility, I cared for well over 100 people who passed on. In my experience, EVERY body will ultimately dispel any contents in the bowel and bladder as muscles relax after death, it's a matter of when not if. In my case, many of the people I cared for went through what would be considered a death process where the body slowly dies over days, weeks, even months. In those cases, people generally stop eating days or weeks before actually dying. The body just naturally stops wanting nutrition and sustenance. Generally, a clearing out of the bowels would happen in the days leading up to death. I rarely experienced the body clearing itself of bowels after death because A. Most had already cleared them before death and B. I never had anyone stay in facility for more than an hour or couple of hours after death before a funeral home picked them up. In this case we are talking about a very young and probably very healthy young girl and a most likely very unnatural death. I'm not experienced in that case but I'd imagine that in this case time would have been of the essence as far as the body clearing itself, and she would have had normal amounts of food and liquids in her that would need to expel. I feel like he may have had a little time before this happened but as far as I know, there's no specific timeframe we could expect that to happen.
I apologize for the subject matter and tried to keep my wording sensitive here. JMO and weighing in with my experience on the subject at hand.

 

[Ladyotm]

If I had to venture a guess, the time of killing wouldn't be in the 7-8am hour. It would more likely have been the night before, and disposing of the body more likely later (1-3pm-ish). SS was disposing of her things in the 7-8am hours.

What time do you think he staged her body in the car?

 

[MassGuy]

If I had to venture a guess, the time of killing wouldn't be in the 7-8am hour. It would more likely have been the night before, and disposing of the body more likely later (1-3pm-ish). SS was disposing of her things in the 7-8am hours.

Something seemingly innocuous really bothered me during mom’s interview. She said something to the effect of “she went to bed, and that was it.” Those last four words tell me that it wasn’t that simple, and that was not it.

So I tend to agree with you.

The counterpoint is why dump the body in broad daylight if the murder happened that early? He would have had several hours of darkness with which to work.

So the daylight body dumping makes the most sense to me, if the murder happened later on in the morning.

In any event, we know the body is in the car at 8ish, but it appears that several hours passed. He didn’t take her body very far, and he doesn’t appear to have tried to bury her.

It sure took a long time for him to dispose of her. Which doesn’t really go to your point, but it has me thinking.

 

[grannygates]

Something seemingly innocuous really bothered me during mom’s interview. She said something to the effect of “she went to bed, and that was it.” Those last four words tell me that it wasn’t that simple, and that was not it.

So I tend to agree with you.

The counterpoint is why dump the body in broad daylight if the murder happened that early? He would have had several hours of darkness with which to work.

So the daylight body dumping makes the most sense to me, if the murder happened later on in the morning.

In any event, we know the body is in the car at 8ish, but it appears that several hours passed. He didn’t take her body very far, and he doesn’t appear to have tried to bury her.

It sure took a long time for him to dispose of her. Which doesn’t really go to your point, but it has me thinking.

I was just thinking about this too. A huge gap of time and not a long distance to travel.

SS is videod dumping MS’s items at 7:35am into the apartment complex dumpsters.

8:19am SS is on video *returning* to the apartment complex w MS in the car (from where?)

It wasn’t until 1-2:30pm that SS was spotted in the area MS was found, “changing his flat tire”

Was he also on video driving near the school as well? I’m not able to find the time stamp for that but I thought it was mentioned.

(Link for timeline)
Madeline Soto was sexually abused by mom’s boyfriend for years, documents say