Found Deceased FL - Madeline Soto, 13, Missing Child Alert, 13500 blk Town Loop Blvd, Orlando, 26 Feb 2024 *arrest* #4

[tlcya]

Which raises a question that's been baffling me from the beginning: who told the aunt/JS what was on the video, since we know the video doesn't exist?

I am pretty sure SS makes a comment to the effect that people say they think she's on video but there's nothing there. IIRC he doesn't say anything about the so-called church video.

I cannot locate it right now but will look. I recall having seen the sheriff in one of the pressers saying that very grainy video of someone walking near the church ended up NOT being Madeline. So maybe someone in LE told the aunt that they were reviewing video from the church trying to DETERMINE if any of the persons seen on it were Madeline. Which JS then turned into Madeline was seen on video near the church. Kinda like "we" dropped her near school actually meant my on again off again boyfriend told me he did that kinda like I saw her getting ready for school this morning" was actually code for Madeline was dead this morning.

ETA perfect, @photographer4 found it for me while I was typing this

 

[MamaBearski]

yes, I agree. traditionally, its so difficult to wrap heads around a mother, in this instance, like so many other cases, as having been involved. rather, its easier to navigate to the possibility something occurred or was occurring to absolve involvement.

on the surface, one can make excuses regarding her behaviour. but what I saw was her lack of urgency, actually poo poo'ing LE's search on that day, telling the media all about it....the creek behind the school, canines, etc, using vehicles to go into the woods, she said to the media: 'I dont think they will find anything.....' (because she says: "WE" had people searching and they didnt find anything.)

thats a heck of a thing to basically say, LE is wasting time and her 'we' people were more skilled. it was a discouraging remark, no hope. why no hope? IMO, she knew she wouldnt be found there. and she wasnt.

--Mom's attitude & answers in the interviews
--she was open with US & told us about crush
--SS stayed with them in a spare room even when broke up with mom bc he was so close to Maddie
--zero info or charges in over a week implies lots of evidence to line up and/or complicated case

I feel sick at the thought of this but I'm starting to think that Maddie and SS were in a 'relationship' and that Mom knew. Maddie thought it was her first love bc SS spent years giving her attention & abusing her and he manipulated an irresponsible & stupid mother into letting it happen. She was smart enough to know it was illegal and kept it from friends and family to protect HERSELF. There was an 'accident' and she felt she had to cover for SS bc she believed his story and knew she would go to jail for allowing the relationship.
It's gross, it's awful, it's a mom feeding her child to the wolves, and it fits the situation and makes it make sense.

 

[diggndeeperstill]

Is

I do think its really interesting that they have a "grainy video" they weren't sure was Madeline in the video or not - last we heard at the press conference -- but in that same conference, LE says they believe she was already dead at 8:19am.

Is it possible that this other person was spotted by JS and her description given as what Maddie was last seen wearing to confuse things?

 

[CuriousCricket]

Cant argue with all those points, all of these things are possibilities. Like I said Im not committed to any theory, more open to hearing all of them.

For me, it's not committing to a theory. No more information than we have, I don't think it's possible to make an educated guess. There is so much more that's unknown than is publicly known, who knows what happened? It's more about playing possibilities through in your mind's eye, attempting to see something that fits the known facts. Someone may have it exactly right, or the truth may very likely prove to be something else entirely.

 

[photographer4]

Think she could have been telling the truth about seeing Maddie getting dressed, but lied about the time, possibly because she knew something wasn't quite right but maybe couldn't work out what. The image some people have of child abusers is dirty old men, with tobacco stained teeth and fingers with greasy yellowy/white hair and dirty vest tops, and whilst those people exist, for the many it's just not true. They're like SS, can fit in with society (kinda), but there's something not quite right yet we can't work it out, because they don't look, act or sound like a predator. They say all the things that we want to hear and can present themselves as honest, moral people who are outraged by such acts. Maybe JS did believe whatever story he may have spun her? (not entirely sure about that though in all honesty)
(Also think Maddie died/was murdered whilst in the vehicle, got into the car with school backpack etc and something happened whilst in the car)

moo

Doubtful. I mean why dump backpack and school pc if she was not dead yet at 7:35am? She'd be needing those for school, no?

 

[ttjo]

For me, it's not committing to a theory. No more information than we have, I don't think it's possible to make an educated guess. There is so much more that's unknown than is publicly known, who knows what happened? It's more about playing possibilities through in your mind's eye, attempting to see something that fits the known facts. Someone may have it exactly right, or the truth may very likely prove to be something else entirely.

exactly!! You explained it better than I did.

 

[ttjo]

Doubtful. I why dump backpack and school pc if she was not dead yet at 7:35am? She'd be needing those for school, no?

I heard someone suggest a reason for dumping it in the apt complex garbage was in case it had some sort of GPS tracker on it.( I dont know how that would work if it was off tho)

 

[photographer4]

--Mom's attitude & answers in the interviews
--she was open with US & told us about crush
--SS stayed with them in a spare room even when broke up with mom bc he was so close to Maddie
--zero info or charges in over a week implies lots of evidence to line up and/or complicated case

I feel sick at the thought of this but I'm starting to think that Maddie and SS were in a 'relationship' and that Mom knew. Maddie thought it was her first love bc SS spent years giving her attention & abusing her and he manipulated an irresponsible & stupid mother into letting it happen. She was smart enough to know it was illegal and kept it from friends and family to protect HERSELF. There was an 'accident' and she felt she had to cover for SS bc she believed his story and knew she would go to jail for allowing the relationship.
It's gross, it's awful, it's a mom feeding her child to the wolves, and it fits the situation and makes it make sense.

I think it is entirely possible that Maddie was groomed to believe she was involved in an adult relationship with her monster. She wouldn't be the first young kid to have been groomed this way, and she surely won't be the last one (sadly). He may have doted on her and impressed upon her that he was in love with her and so on and so forth and manipulated the entire thing - what better way to make a victim perfectly compliant than if they think you *love* them and would never intentionally hurt them. There are a whole lot of gross things I am not going to articulate here, but I'm all too familiar with this type of grooming - how it happens and how it can be effective.

 

[photographer4]

Is

Is it possible that this other person was spotted by JS and her description given as what Maddie was last seen wearing to confuse things?

not if mom saw her getting ready for class at 8:00am. And not if mom wasn't at the "drop off" spot at the church parking lot.

 

[CuriousCricket]

Is

Is it possible that this other person was spotted by JS and her description given as what Maddie was last seen wearing to confuse things?

I've wondered the same thing. But when the remains were found, wouldn't entirely different clothing be mentioned?

 

[Mimimom]

Think she could have been telling the truth about seeing Maddie getting dressed, but lied about the time, possibly because she knew something wasn't quite right but maybe couldn't work out what. The image some people have of child abusers is dirty old men, with tobacco stained teeth and fingers with greasy yellowy/white hair and dirty vest tops, and whilst those people exist, for the many it's just not true. They're like SS, can fit in with society (kinda), but there's something not quite right yet we can't work it out, because they don't look, act or sound like a predator. They say all the things that we want to hear and can present themselves as honest, moral people who are outraged by such acts. Maybe JS did believe whatever story he may have spun her? (not entirely sure about that though in all honesty)
(Also think Maddie died/was murdered whilst in the vehicle, got into the car with school backpack etc and something happened whilst in the car)

moo

But why would she be in the car so early? LE said backpack was put in dumpster about 730 am. Too early for Madeline to be in the car when school starts after 9.

 

[Pruddennce]

Did the aunt (who I believe JS said saw her on church CCTV) confirm that she thought she saw Maddy on the CCTV (or at least a kid matching the vague description) or not?

Something about this indicates a vague story/narrative was concocted in under five minutes and then haphazardly pieced together. Like, were the texts about "wanting to go live in the woods" even real, or did SS/they decide that would be the story, which is why she was dumped in the woods? MOO.

IIRC the aunt's brief comments that were aired to the media were focused on she is not a runaway.

from Sheriff's presser, he stated that Madeline's text/social media where the living in the wood's comment was found, he was asked when it was posted/texted. he would not say, only that it was 'before her 13th birthday Feb 22'. and: when the media asked whether they found if there was any turmoil in the home, he said the living in the woods posting/text by her was the only thing considered turmoil.

 

[photographer4]

But why would she be in the car so early? LE said backpack was put in dumpster about 730 am. Too early for Madeline to be in the car when school starts after 9.

Speaks to a degree of premeditation on at least getting the kidnapping story started maybe?

 

[IzzyBlanche]

ETA 2: I don't think the grainy video in the church parking lot was ruse by LE. I think possibly it is a coincidence or a ruse by SS and JS.

Snipped for focus. Thank you so much for posting that video again!

If JS and SS made up the video story out of whole cloth, that was really stupid. LE would know at some point no such video existed.

 

[carriepdx]

I’m relatively new to posting and need to know if you can search for posts you saw early on, or if you have to go back to the beginning and go through them one by one.

Edited to add that the post I’m looking for was about the location where she was found, and it’s relative proximity to the home of a father/son pair who are known pedophiles. I don’t know if it was even allowed to remain in this forum, but I’d love to find it if it was.

 

[scapa]

They had other issues to deal with no matter what happened:
- Maddie's extended family clearly loved her very much and THEY knew she wasn't the type to have run away. The aunt tells us this directly in this interview she gave to the media:
Madeline Soto's aunt: Missing girl wouldn't run away

Exactly how were JS and SS going to explain that Maddie was suddenly gone to THEM?? So no matter what happened, as soon as Maddie was dead, they were going to have to either own up to whatever caused it (be it she suicided, accidental overdose, an accidental death during a conflict, a deliberate death via choking). As soon as someone in that house failed to act to get medical attention to that child, or to call 911 as soon as she was found dead (whichever way this horrible event went down) - they were screwed. And they knew it.

The best guess I have is they COULD NOT call 911 because of guilt. He was SA'ing her and he was going down for it no matter what. He wouldn't want 911 called for any reason! If it was suicide by overdose, where'd she get whatever she o'd on from? That's a problem for them. If she died by accident, what happened to cause the accident? That's a problem for them. All roads lead to jail for one or both of them. SS being the obvious one to be blamed for at least SA if nothing else.

So these two cowards decided instead to set up like she was kidnapped. They dropped her off at a church parking lot no less, with their shiny halos on and hoped and prayed that no one would realize their horrible roles in her demise.

Is this an IMO post? Has JS now been charged as a conspirator?

These threads are moving so quickly that I'm finding it hard to keep up, but I'm not seeing much in MSM about JS at this point.

Hard to believe this level of enmeshment given the alleged on-again/ off-again nature of the SS/JS relationship and the absence of some usual triggers in cases we've seen, but sadly anything seems possible at this point.

 

[Mimimom]

Maybe things are so quiet while they investigate the images on his phone to try to trace if there is a pedo ring to bring down. I think there might be.

I hope there is and they find and convict them. We all know there's plenty out there

 

[Lyanna]

Doubtful. I why dump backpack and school pc if she was not dead yet at 7:35am? She'd be needing those for school, no?

Don't think it's any less possible or likely than her dying/murdered in her home then dressed and moved out into the car by SS - that's far more risky in terms of possible witnesses etc.
He could have said I'll take Maddie to school but it will be early because of x,y,z reasons - may explain JS's seeing her get dressed comment, because she could have seen her, just not at the 8am time instead seeing her at an earlier time. If Maddie was deceased hours before that time and in the home, why not dump her school bag in the middle of the night and move Maddie's body at the same time, then call her in as a runaway/abduction or whatever reason these toxic wastes of space think sound believable?
This man groomed Maddie for years, subjected her to awful things. Why is it so unbelievable that he couldn't have tricked her in some way to get her in the car with him at say 06.00am under some guise or other?

moo

 

[photographer4]

5:04 mark - (from the crowd): On the morning of Feb 25 - did she leave the house on her own?
Officer: "What I'll say is what I already said - we believe he moved her body in the early morning hours & all that is still under investigation".

Is it possible she left the house of her own accord (either by just leaving silently or fighting her way out)? And ended up dead as a result? After re-watching this video, I'm more sure this wasn't a suicide. This has been transitioned to a homicide investigation is pretty clear that there was a murder (intentional or accidental, I do not know). I'm also more clear that they have video evidence that makes them sure she was dead by 8:19am. I wonder now if there is some other video that shows her dead - or dying - in the damn car? We assume he moved her body INTO the car, but is it possible she was already in the car when she was killed?

All we know is he dumped backpack 7:35. They have video evidence which they believe she was dead in at 8:19am. And they believe he moved her body in the early morning hours. Interesting. I sure hope we learn more soon!

 

[TravelingBug]

ETA 2: I don't think the grainy video in the church parking lot was ruse by LE. I think possibly it is a coincidence or a ruse by SS and JS.

Or as SS returned back to the house via the school area where he was seen on camera, he saw someone walking the direction of the school that might be able to be used as "cover?"

Then he possibly fit the alleged (nearly an hour early) drop off time around that (fake) "Maddie" heading toward the school appropriately, just in case of video footage and as "proof" he dropped her off to shore up his cover story.