While her daughter is still missing, Maddie Soto’s mother sits down with investigators from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
They show her evidence proving Maddie is not alive. They also show her photos from Stephan Stern's phone, removing all doubt about what has been going on between her 38-year-old boyfriend and her 13-year-old daughter.
During the interview, investigators ask the mother about the motive—why would Sterns kill Maddie? Both investigators and the mother wonder: Is it possible Maddie was pregnant?
Joining Nancy Grace Today:
Crime Stories with Nancy Grace Maddie Soto just thirteen years old.
Her body found tonight was a home pregnancy test missing.
I meansy Grace, this is crime Stories. Thank you for being with us.
I sent them to sleep upstairs in the bathroom of the guest bedroom, but I could get a good night sleep. I think we need to get you a lawyer. But that was me assuming that you guys had the wrong guy, not that he had done all this to her. I don't know why I wasn't thinking him. I believed the factual stuff, but I didn't want to believe that he had done anything equal to her.
Would you decide the self is fine?
It's not fine. I look back now, I'm just like he was flying, he was baking.
You worse pregnant? Have you ever found a pregnancy test at home?
I have two underneath the kitchen to the bathroom, saying, but I have to sleep if there's the there?
What color shirt and pants was she last sheen wearing hold on? Let me ask.
So we'll kloch sure, and what was she lost wearing.
Hold on?
We're finding out, okay?
And then how long has it been those since you guys have last seen her.
Since this morning.
She was dropped off at school this morning and apparently she never showed up.
We called everyone we knew.
No one has seen her pregnancy test, missing mommy hasn't checked her daughter, missing then found dead. Joining me an all star panel, But first to Hannah Mackenzie joining us anchor and investigative reporter Fox thirty five Orlando.
Hannah, thank you for being with us.
Could you explain to the non legal eagles out there that don't know who that was talking?
Who is Jennifer Soto?
So Jennifer Soto is Maddy Soto's mother, And what is so alarming about all of these hours worth of investigative evidence and interviews that we've been seeing is this is the first time we've actually heard from Jennifer's Soto. And to hear her answering the investigators questions with really little to no information for the first time coming out of her mouth is quite.
Alarming, guys.
In addition to Hannah Mackenzie joining us from Fox thirty five Orlando, is renown psychoanalysts joining us out of Beverly Hills doctor Bethany Marshall, author of deal Breakers. You can see her now on peacock Doctor, Bethany, I'm just a trial lawyer. You're the psychoanalyst. But I'm pretty sure I've heard translation. I've combed over the transcript hundreds of times, Mom saying, you know, I saw the pictures you showed me of him raping my daughter, but you know I couldn't believe he would do something evil kill her.
Nancy, this mother is not bonded to her daughter. She uses her daughter like bait to hold on to her boyfriend. This mother is preoccupied with the boyfriend. Did you hear her talk to the investigators about well he lied to other people.
I never thought he would lie to me.
She was more worried about her own betrayal than what had happened with her daughter. And one more thing, Nancy. You know, when children go missing and you interview the parents, there's two things you look for. You look for whether or not they're bonded with the child, whether or not they show concern. In this case, Jennifer shows absolutely no concern. And then you also look for details, credible details when the child was last seen, what they were wearing. Why there's so many details missing. I mean, she didn't know what her daughter was wearing her boyfriend apparently left the house super early Monday morning to take the little girl to school. Well, I think we know what this point. The little girl was deceased, but the mother seems to have no understanding about that.
Well wait, pause, pause, doctor Bethany Marshall, Mattie's Soto wasn't just deceased. She was strapped in to mommy's boyfriend's car in a seatbelt, dead, propped up to look like she was alive because he knew he had to drive past an apartment cam okay, and he would be MANI cams and he would be spotted. So let me get the visual through to you. She's dead, a thirteen year old little girl propped up like she's alive like this, okay, So you take it from there, and Mom's like, yeah, you just showed me. How many was it, Jackie hold On, Hannah McKenzie. How many thousands of images were found on boyfriend's phone. I would say sex related, but they're actually of him videoing himself raping Maddie.
The thirteen year old little girl.
How many there are photos and videos countless on his phone and on one us B that was seized thanks to his father turning it in. There were thirty five thousand images of child sexual contraction.
And none of those were on his phone.
Start from where you said twenty five thousand, right, just start right there.
What on Stephen Stern's USB that his father turned into police? They found thirty five thousand videos and photos of child pornography that was on one USB.
You know, Hannah McKenzie, I learned in court that silence can be just as powerful as hearing some lawyer babble on and on.
See my earplayed a trick on me. I thought you said twenty five You just.
Said thirty five thirty five thousand videos and or steal images of what child pornography?
And that was just on one us B. That's not even including the photos and videos he had of Maddie on his cell.
Phone, photos and videos of what her blowing out the birthday candles, her in front of the Christmas tree, her on her birthday, photos and videos of what Hannah mackenzie.
Those photos and videos.
We haven't even been able to air the content that was released because reading these files and these documents that have been released by police and the Sheriff's office, they're hard to even read. The details involved include him, as you said, raping her. Oftentimes she appeared to be asleep. He was, you know, inserting his penis in her mouth, inserting his penis in her genital areas many of those times, again while she appeared to be asleep or under a blanket.
Doctor Bethany, isn't it true that it is a common tactic of child molestation victims to pretend they're asleep in the hopes that that will make them a luster go away, excuse me, the rapist go away.
They just pretend to sleep.
And then they continue in that somnambulant state or pretend state, to remove themselves from what's really happening to their body.
Yes, Nancy, it starts out as just simply playing dead. Then the trauma is so severe that they begin to dissociate, to separate from themselves, and in the final stage the sexual abuse survivors describe that as children, they would float up to the ceiling and look down on the scene as they were.
Being raped and traded.
The sad thing to Nancy, his mother was in the bed at the same time that all of this was happening, and we don't yet know what her involvement was in this. I think this guy was such a such a prolific offender, as intrafamilial offenders are on average day offend three hundred and forty four times against each child because they have access to them, as opposed to somebody at school or in a different environment.
But I would.
Imagine he was trying to have sex with his girlfriend with Jennifer in front of the little girl, just in the hopes that he would seduce the little girl or excite her. That's how disturbed this guy really is.
I want you to hear Jennifer Soto in her own words.
Listen, I said, you guys, I needed a night fleet.
I need to take my mend. I sent them to fleet upstairs in the beds from the guest bedroom so that I could get a good night fleet. Interested that we all see together in the scene.
Back together, but not the easiest person to see Blitz.
She rolls around, punches you kicks.
Robin Drake is joining me.
Behavior expert, And I've just got to tell you this. A lot of times I see talking has, I'm like, what are they saying? That doesn't even make any sense? Drake, behavior expert, Why former FBI special agent, wait for it, chief of the FBI Counterintelligence Behavior Analysis Program and author of Okay, You've got a spy book, Unbreakable Alliances, A spy of recruiters, blah blah blah.
But the one I like that's available Locktober twenty.
Eight is Sizing People Up, a veteran FBI agent's manual for behavior prediction. Now, Robin, thank you for being with us and Bethany weigh in on this, and I can't wait to get to the defense attorney Philip Debay. But Robin, I have looked and looked and watched and watched, even stopped it and looked at the mother, Jennifer Soto, who now is saying, upon asking, didn't even put it out there. Do you have any pregnancy tests at home? She goes, huh, Why, Yeah, I haven't even checked to see if those are missing, raising the specter that this child could be pregnant, because we all know that once a pregnancy occurs, the woman's life is in so much more danger, even in a marital setting, much less this setting, because if she had become pregnant, then it would no longer be a secret and he would be out it. Now, what would he do to keep that from happening, Drake, because Soto's his meal ticket. He lives between her house and his mother's basement plays. So did you watch her? Did you see her behavior as she's talking about sending her daughter off to sleep with her boyfriend, and when the sheriff goes, uh.
You got any pregnancy tests at home? She didn't miss a beat.
You know, Doctor Bethany had everything so accurately on this one. And that is not only was a daughter trying to survive by disassociating, but so is the mother. This is the most abhorrent case I think we've ever covered. Nancy. It's just befuddling about how strongly she compartmentalized this is Jennifer and disassociate herself from the reality, and every time she was confronted with a truth of fact, her reality kept crashing down. And I guarantee you this is not his first rodeo doing this horrendous acts to children. Because he was so comfortable with not only abusing this girl and raping this girl, but he seemed to be so comfortable with killing her. It's just amazing, and so is Jennifer. She seems so comfortable in this lie that she's lived, that she can be surrounded by horrendousness and seeks to dissociating, compartmentalize away from it so effectively it's horrendous.
Philip Dubay joining me, renowned attorney with the La County Public Defender's Office.
You know what that means. He's in court all the time, just like.
A prosecutor is in court all the time, a defense attorney is in court, especially a PAYDA public defender like twenty four seven three sixty five. Philip Dubay, what do you think about that affect of mommy?
Did you see her? Have you watched the video? She's like, yeah, that's pregnancy, Tessy. What happened to them?
I think in Jen's mind that her little angel is everybody's angel, and that she would assume that the entire world is her daughter's guardian angel, and she was just so unsuspecting and unwary of what was happening in her little Walter Knitting mind.
Bethany helped me out.
In fifty percent of all cases where children are molested, there's what we call a bystander in the household, a teenager, a cousin, somebody who sees everything but says nothing. In a fifth of all those cases, the bystander is the mother. Okay, this is the mother here. One of the reasons mothers do this, besides the fact that they're not bonded with their children, is that they're afraid of financial repercussions. But Jennifer has a job, she has a car, she drives, she decorates the house. She doesn't have those usual motivations that one would be a bystander or look the other way. I think she was taking pleasure in this. I think she was desperate to hold on to her boyfriend at any cost. I think she's selfish, self referential. All she talks about in those interviews is herself. This little girl was a thing, and it an object to be used, a plaything, to put between her and her book friend, to keep him in an aroused state so he would not leave her. She was used, plain and simple, by her own mother, the one, the one person who's supposed to protect.
Her, bombshell revealed in a newly released police interview. Although murdered thirteen year old's mother was this little girl.
Pregnant mom Jen Soto under questioning on this very topic.
Listen, you can go even worse.
She's pregnant. Thanks.
That's what question of last night led me to believe. When we start talking about.
Her period, I was told that her and her friend, granted male, never had a period, but that somebody found it weird that they were no longer in the same cycle. Could be different because she's a teenage girl. Could be that she missed her gerier and you were found a pregnancy test at home that wasn't yours.
I have two underneath the kitchen the bathroom sink, but I haven't seen if.
There's a lear in Doctor Mathady Marshall, renowned psycho analysts. I'd like to hear your analysis of what we just saw on her.
Well, Nancy, this mother's voice is so vacuous, and by that I mean empty. It's like she can't even come up with emotions about this. It doesn't have that dissociated, disconnected, traumatized.
Sound to it.
It has the sound of a woman who's never cared about her daughter at all, and all of a sudden she has to pretend to care about her daughter, making stereotyped motions like putting her hand in her forehead, moving around as if she's sad.
But she's not sad at all.
You know, Nancy, there's only one reason to have a pregnancy test, is it's if you're anticipating you might get pregnant. I know she's not somebody who's been charged in this case, but on some level, it's like she was participating in a crime all along and making sure.
That her boyfriend wouldn't get caught.
The only thing between her and the boyfriend getting caught were these pregnancy tests.
I noticed doctor Bethany when he starts talking about the pregnancy test as if that's a normal topic of conversation. Is your teen girl taking pregnancy tests? The mom who has her arms closed in front of her, she's switching legs, she tries to cross them casually and then puts them in kind of a pretzel as he's asking about the pregnancy test. But what does that mean to you as you observe.
Her, Nancy, what I see in this video when she kind of puts herself into a pretzel, she's trying to act younger, regressed, more innocent than she really is.
This is what little kids do. They sit cross legged, they twist.
Their legs around, they twirl their hair, they do all kinds of things, kind of a classic maneuver. I think behaviorally is to act younger and more innocent than you really are.
I thought Robin drink that was a sign of being on the defense.
It can be, but normally, anytime you see a deviation from what we normally see in someone's baseline, it indicates a change of thought. It could be going back to awar innocent time in life. It could be blocking, it could be stress. And that's what I'm guessing here, is that this question caused stress and cause a change of thought in her.
I'm just curious about how long this had been going on, based on the videos and pictures Hannah McKenzie joining us Fox thirty five, the assaults, rapes, lustations on her daughter by her boyfriend had been going on since Maddie was about nine years old.
Yeah, I mean nine years old to thirteen. And you got to remember she was a new thirteen year old. Her birthday was just that previous week before she was reported missing and also killed. So this was years worth of sexual abuse that this little girl had to go through.
I want you to hear the entire panel how Jennifer Soto keeps referring to herself and one of problems she's having. And I also want to circle back to what she said, Let's address this first. She says, that's what questions last night led me to believe. When we started talking about her period. Who was talking about her period? Hannah Mackenzie.
So this was.
Brought up multiple times in different interviews with law enforcement with Jennifer, multiple times before the pregnancy test was even brought up.
They were kept asking her.
About her cycle, about her period, and Jennifer is on camera saying I tracked her period. I knew when she was on her period. And the detective in the office at the time said, well, did you notice any feminine hygiene products being used in February? And Jennifer kind of sits back for a second, kind of how you were describing a shift in the body language again and says, no, I didn't realize any feminine hygiene products were being used in February.
I didn't notice that.
Online.
There has been a lot of speculation about this particular photo Mom's online speculating that here thirteen year old Mattie looks pregnant now based off what was found on a cell phone with graphic videos of the defendant Stefon Stearns raping the daughter. I also don't hear the police mention anything about a condom in any of those videos, suggesting they were having well not unprotected sex. He was raping her without a condom. The police were able to see a marking on his penis consistent with other videos in images, which means he was having unprotected sex. Other moms point to dark colored circles underneath her eyes that were not there before. I'm just wondering what does all this mean. Crime stories with Nancy Grace to you, Doctor Bethany Marshall bombshell documents revealing how steph On Sturms allegedly killed the teen dubbed her body. My question is, once a pregnancy occurs, does that raise the likelihood of violence?
Nancy, It most definitely does, and primary are there are two reasons for this actually, One is that the father does not want the responsibility of a baby, and the other is the father is often envious of the unborn baby, not wanting to share the attention with the baby. But in this case, of course, we know it's so much more sinister. That baby is evidence evidence that he's been abusing this little girl. I don't think he's trying to hide a fragrancy from Jennifer. By the way, because she knows about those pregnancy tests, he has to hide it from the public and the police.
He outly cried in front of the camera too.
So he's face stop crying.
Are you saying that now or I'm.
Saying that now?
I didn't think at the time.
At the time, I thought he was truly heartbroken.
And not that he had done all the year to her. I look back now, I'm just like he was lying, he was baking. What else has he been lying to me about. I know he's like a master Byron 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 to try.
A lawyer joining us out of La Philip Dubay. I guess the defense is going to have that cost suppressed at court because they don't want the jury to hear Jennifer Soto calling Stephan Stearns a liar and a master manipulator, even though she says it's true.
They're not going to need her.
Frankly, They've got plenty of evidence independent of Jen. All they would really establish through Jen, if they even want to call her to this band, is that they were living together and maybe shared a bed together. But frankly, I think they have plenty of evidence without her. But let's assume that is the case they decide to put her on. You know, everybody has problems within their relationships independent of the children, and there is no playbook for how we speak out and lash out a significant or even our instinct in others. And to suggest that every couple, every marriage is just lovey dovey, picture perfect and wonderful would be frankly offensive to a jury, and it would look like you're just trying to pin the whole thing on her. So I think it could actually work to her benefit and certainly to his detriment.
Wow, the cunning you display, the thinking that goes into a defense strategy is amazing. The way you analyze that, and you're like your Rumpel still skin. You take Hay and you spin it out into defense gold.
Wow.
Okay, guys, I want you to hear doctor Bethany Robin Drake, how this is all about me me me me me, me, me me me, me and me.
Listen. Are he ugly cried in.
Front of the camera too, so he's.
Big soop crying.
Are you saying that now or you I'm.
Saying that now?
I didn't think at the time. At the time, I thought he was truly heartbroken and not that he had done all this to her. I look back at it now, I'm just like he was lying. He was thinking, what else have you been lying to me about? I know he's like a master Byron manipulator because he's he's done it to his parents, and he's told me and shown me he's done to his parents. But I don't know why I never thought.
Not me, Bethany Drake. Is it just me? Am I the crazy one?
But is she angry because he lied to her, not that he raped her daughter for four years that we know of and killed her you, Bethany Ladies, First.
Nancy, let me take it one level deeper. She's actually subtly starting to turn on him. So it's all self referential at first. Oh, he lied to me. I can't believe he lied to me. Then she starts to paint the picture of the master manipulator, and I think she's starting to manipulate the investigators saying, Hey, he's not such a nice guy. He lies to his parents. So this woman, Jennifer, has the capacity for self protection. She has the capacity to turn against her boyfriend when he doesn't please her, and she wants to save her own skin for herself, but she wouldn't do it for her daughter.
Do you see where I'm going with this?
She wants to protect herself, but she wouldn't protect her daughter. It's not because she's passive. It's not because she doesn't have a job and she's afraid of leaving him because she has no money, or she's been blinded by love.
She only cares about herself.
That's what's evident in this segment that you're playing.
What about it, Robin.
Drake, Oh my gosh, Doctor Bethany is so spot on with everything.
I'm just sitting here nodding the entire time.
And yeah, okay, Robin Drake, correct me if I'm wrong. But didn't you run the behavioral science division at the FBI.
Let's see what this is here.
Robin Drake, Counterintelligence behavior Analysis program. Okay, this is not an echo timer. Stop saying what she said.
But she's so good, So I'll add to it, and that is in the me, me, me of her life. And she even threw him under the bus. As doctor Bethany was saying, she said that he was being heartbroken.
Are you kidding me?
We saw the videos of him being interviewed, and that's why I say he never once deviated from his baseline of just stoic blah, which means he's got a lot of reps of doing this. He was not fearful of being caught by her. Just like doctor Bethany was saying, it was this, This entire thing looks extremely contrived, and because she's in complete survival mode now, she sees herself being threatened and she's thrown started starting to ponder the idea of throwing him under the bus when you.
Guys showed 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. I'm like, know, what if she what if he did this stop buying? But what if she's still missing out there? What if somebody took her? I still wanted to believe his I believed him, I believed his whole story. So I was just like, I kept repeating that part. She's like, what if what did she take I dropped off? What if she got abducted? What if she's missing?
To Bethany, Doctor.
Bethany, did you just hear that this mother can't even pretend to care about her daughter.
If she was really.
A good actor, she would have seen the pictures of her boyfriend raping her daughter and saying, oh my god, I can't believe, oh my god. She can't even work up a crocodile tear.
She cannot. That's how.
Callous she is to her own daughter. She's not shocked because she's been viewing her daughter being raped for so many years. I don't think she even thinks it's evil that her daughter's been killed. It could even be a relief to her on some level that this whole thing is over. She's using a very contrived word because she is a lingering concern. She's making up concern, but she can't even fake it, Nancy, because she doesn't know what it's like.
I thought, doctor Bethany, you were going to say something about one of your favorite words other than massio saticism is narcissism, that it's all about me.
I wanted a.
Good night sleep. I needed to take my meds. I had to get up for work. He lied to me. He did this to me. I'm so disappointed. I knew he was a liar.
I I me me. You haven't even mentioned narcissism.
Well, I would say narcissism steroid.
By the way, narcissism is named after Narcissus, for those of you who have not been schooled by doctor Bethany, who is a mythical person who happened to look into the water and see his own image and fall in love and then died staring at himself, fell into the water and died. That's what where narcissism the word comes from. So hit at Bethany, Well, so Nancy.
Also, narcissism is a spectrum disorder. So at the milder end you have narcissism, and at the most extreme end you have the psychopath antisocial sociopath psychopath. I would say she's further up to scale towards antisocial personality disorder and probably borderline personality disorder, because what you see with antisocial one of the criteria is reckless disregard and lack of concern for the rights and safety of others. Lying, conning, manipulativeness, failure to pay back debts to society, promiscuity.
And you can see all of this in how she's treating her daughter.
I think also the lack of empathy or remorse when another person is hurt. Almost all mothers who are bystanders when their children are being molested are not bonded with their children.
There's no maternal bonding, Anthony. Can I tell you something, Doctor Bethany. All day long until we got here, I have been staring at the cell phone. Why have I been staring at the cell phone? Because my daughter had a test today. She secretly stayed up till almost one o'clock studying, And my stomach has been like that all day.
How did she do? How did she do? I'm so worried.
I'm so worried about her about a test, a stupid test that in the big scheme of things, doesn't even matter at Hold on, Bethany, whole panel, watch this. Watch the mom who is not charged with anything, who is not a suspect, who is not a person of interest in anything.
But you didn't know that, then then.
You offered a guy the police suspected, suspected of kidnap, be abducting, assisting the disappearing a lawyer, and then we don't have to run pable that you went back to what you just said is the sex stuff is fine?
It's not fine.
He has to call her on it, and she goes, Okay, yeah, it's not fine.
But did I get that right Handah mackenzie investigated reporter in anchor Fox thirty five, Hannah, did Soto the mom offer Stephan Stearns a.
Lawyer or offer to help him find a lawyer?
I think in the beginning stages, yes, but she then kind of changed tune when she was speaking with investigators and they were calling her on things that she had said, like we just heard her saying, you know, this is fine and then then being like did you just say this is fine? I think she then saw that he was going to be more of a suspect and began to change her tune.
Okay, because they say, didn't you know that?
Then you offered a guy who the police suspected of kidnapped, abducting, assisting the disappearance of your daughter, you offered him a law You're okay, listen to this.
How do you feel what he said? He is a word.
He didn't believe me, Like when I was a little.
My daughter, she friends, this is closing down the house. They know something or there's something like they know something, something's happening. They wouldn't be locking down the house this way if if they didn't have suspicions of something.
But I wasn't.
Thinking I don't know why I wasn't thinking him like, I was just like, no, they've got the wrong guy.
Okay, I'm gonna try to see this in the light most favorable to Jen Sooto right now.
But I'm having a hard time crime stories with Nancy Grace.
See, Drake, I'm gonna go to you before I go to doctor Bethany. This time, I figured you out. Okay, you're not gonna get to say what she just said, Drake. She sees the forensic people around the house walking.
Around, and you know how they look. They're like bees swarming, and she goes, hey, you don't see this, it's happening. Something's wrong. Can I help get a lawyer? What?
I'm pretty sure I would have stabbed him in the heart, But she's talking to him about giving him a lawyer.
Yeah. She maintains a pretty pragmatic view of this entire thing, just because again I think she's witting of this. Regardless of any kind of mental health issues she may or may not have, who cares, She still made a lot of choices along this path, and the entire behavior she has is completely congruent with compartmentalization of what she wanted to believe was going on. And she thought all this was fine. She set it out of her own mouth, and so it's going to go sideways for it.
There's no doubt.
You know, that's interesting that he said that, Bethany, she said it out of her own mouth, because so often when we don't like what a person says, we choose to believe they meant to say something else. Straight just described the mom jen so To, who is not a suspect in any way, and I assume is graving the murder of her daughter. He described her as pragmatic. That's not the adjective I would have picked, exactly. Pragmatic. I mean, when I see forensics and swants circling the house and I know I didn't do it, and I look over this guy who's been sleeping with my daughter, I don't say, hey, can I Dahlia Philip Dubay on the phone and get you a high profile lawyer to help you out of this mess.
I know that would not be what would be happening in the house.
Well, okay, so remember that antisocial personality disorder symptom lying conning and manipulativeness. I hear her more as being calculating and remorseless during this time, and I think she knows that if he.
Goes down, she's going to go down.
She was in that bed too when her daughter was being raped. You know she's not a suspect. I do know that she has not fallen under suspicion. But if somebody's robbing a bank and I.
Don't know again, the band when Maddie was raped, I think she would send them off to sleep in the guest bedroom.
I don't need them.
But actually, the three of them did sleep together a lot, and he did tell another woman he was saying that he would get an erection in bed with Maddie, and that woman wisely quit dating him. The three of them did sleep together, that that point is without question.
Yes, And she would wake up and Jennifer would wake up in the morning and find him spooning I think the investigator called it spooning. She said cuddling with her daughter, that they would have cuddle time. Also, when she sent them upstairs, she called it a slumber party. You know, and sex often a euphemism for sex is the word play. People say, well, we had playtime or we played It's sort of an adult reference. So I heard when she said slumber party, it's almost like they're going to go sexually play. I think that she was not compartmentalizing. I think she knew exactly what was going on. And I think if he goes down, she goes down too.
I know it's an emotional thing, and I know it sucks to hear borah I'm coming from is it sits like something that you can't hide forever. You guys live in a small space, close corners, you sleep in the same bed, you guys all talk, you guys all share things. You're an observant person for the most part, I see, outside of taking medications and going to sleep, it seems very difficult. A lot of girls, adults can't hide an affair with somebody who doesn't live with them, let a little somebody who does live with them. Sort of certain point I do believe you became aware of what was.
Going on straight out die profile lawyer Philip Dubay joining us out of la Philip question, do you believe Jen Soto will turn on Stephan Stearn's at trial and be a state's witness because she will be in for a searing cross examination if she does.
I do, as a matter of fact, But I do think what could also happen is that she might take the fifth and they're going to appoint her counsel, so they won't be able to use her for either side. Let's assume hypothetically that they do decide to put her on and she wants to testify against Stefan. I think she would come off quite credibly, But then the jury might wonder, you know, why are you being so cerebral? Why are you being so analytical about this? Why aren't you being visceral? Were you in on it? So it could actually be risky also for the prosecution by putting her on, she needs to have something substantive to say to appoint to his guilt as to the homicide and the sex offenses.
Interesting, so earlier we heard doctor Bethany say, if hey, Stephan Stearns goes down.
She goes down to.
She's not charged with anything, So I don't see how that would happen.
The only way she would quote go down is that.
She would lose credibility as a mom because the jury and others would see that this happened right under her nose.
And the only way she would ever be taken to stand if I were appointed to represent her as a witness, is for her to take the fifth or to be guaranteed a complete grant of you and transactional immunity. Otherwise, even if she successfully helps the prosecution gets stefan, they could come.
After her next.
So they have to give her some type of an incentive to testify against him because it's too risky.
Wow, you know what, Dube, your borderline scary. I wouldn't have even thought of that next step of insisting that she'd be granted immunity in exchange for testimony so there could never be charges against her. Okay, one step ahead of everybody else, Doctor Eric Aesen. The big question tonight is was this little girl who just turned thirteen when she was Maddie pregnant, And I feel like I'm eating a dirt sandwich just saying those words, but the investigators brought that up in Jen Soto's interview. So doctor Aeson again, you stated you could tell pregnancy in a murder victim by yurine that you would harvest during the auto or from vitreous which is liquid surrounding the eye. Could if you then say sheet was pregnant, what do you do remove the fetus and determine the age?
Oh, well, it depends on how far along you are. This was very early on in the pregnant sea. There's really not going to be much there. There's just going to be some tissue that's considered what's called products of conception, but an actual fetus is not going to be there. Another option would be to take the actual uterus itself and look at it under the microscope. You can actually see an implantation site where the embryo implanted. But you know, the further along and pregnancy that you get, you're actually going to have a fetus there, and can run DNA testing and do an actual like a second autopsy within an autopsy on that. I've done that before in a couple of cass.
Hanna McKenzie joining us Fox thirty five, Orlando, the autopsy report has still not been released, has it.
No, that's the that's the truth of it, Nancy. We are, you know, waiting with baited breath to get that autopsy report. We do know the cause of death listed as strangulation, and we have reached out to the state Attorney's office to find out if Mattie's body had been tested for the presence of pregnancy hormone. They got back to us and said that's an ongoing investigation and they weren't able to release those results or whether or not they'd even.
Tested this entire line up.
Interrogation and questioning that we are analyzing tonight comes from an interview with the mom, Jen Soto, where the investigator asks if Maddie was pregnant. We wait as justice unfolds, but now we stop to remember an American hero, Sergeant Matthew Ryan Fishman, Wayne County Sheriff's North Carolina, shot and killed in the line of duty. Fishman survived by grieving wife Sarah and two children, Nolan and Kara. Sentenced to life without dad. American hero Sergeant Matthew Ryan Fishman. Thank you to our guests for tackling this very very disturbing issue, but especially to you for being with us. Nancy Gray signing off goodbye friend,