Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Abused at 8, Murdered at 13; The Sad, Short Life of Madeline Soto

Transcript

Abused at 8, Murdered at 13; The Sad, Short Life of Madeline Soto · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:08
Speaker 1: Buddy Backs with Joseph Scott Morgan. When I was thirteen
0:20
Speaker 1: years old, I played baseball. And the reason I bring
0:26
Speaker 1: that up is that I always thought that I would
0:30
Speaker 1: never be able to. But something clicks when you hit
0:33
Speaker 1: that age twelve or thirteen. I was never a very
0:36
Speaker 1: good baseball player prior to that, I was not naturally
0:41
Speaker 1: gifted at it. But when you hit twelve or thirteen,
0:46
Speaker 1: like so many other things at that time in life,
0:48
Speaker 1: there's something that arises within you as a child where
0:54
Speaker 1: you begin to kind of see your way just a
0:56
Speaker 1: little bit. Certainly not all the way. I've had middle
0:59
Speaker 1: schoolers in my house, trust me, they haven't seen their
1:02
Speaker 1: way clear in all things. But there's something that happens
1:04
Speaker 1: at that magical age where your future begins to brighten
1:10
Speaker 1: a little bit. You kind of go from being a
1:13
Speaker 1: child into that teen world and you start to on
1:19
Speaker 1: those wobbly legs, get your footing. But you know, for
1:25
Speaker 1: many kids, unfortunately, like the one we're going to speak
1:29
Speaker 1: of today, the future doesn't brighten. It gets darker and
1:38
Speaker 1: darker until there's no light at all. Today we're going
1:48
Speaker 1: to talk about the homicide of Matt So I'm Joseph
1:55
Speaker 1: Scott Morgan and this is body bags, Dave and weary brother.
2:04
Speaker 1: I'm weary and I'm tired of covering these cases. It
2:08
Speaker 1: seems like they just will not stop. They are and
2:13
Speaker 1: you know, i'd like to say that it you know,
2:15
Speaker 1: and of course Harmony is a lot younger, but it
2:19
Speaker 1: seems like every time we turn around, there is another
2:23
Speaker 1: one of these cases in the news where children have
2:27
Speaker 1: been failed. And it's like it's a broken record. It's
2:31
Speaker 1: like we can just insert, you know, that that little
2:34
Speaker 1: bit of sound into these episodes that we do. The
2:38
Speaker 1: children have been failed. The children have been failed over
2:41
Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over again.
2:44
Speaker 2: Coming on the heels of Audrey Cunningham, this story made
2:47
Speaker 2: both the you and I sick to our stomach because
2:50
Speaker 2: we had just put that horrid story. At least we
2:53
Speaker 2: had a conclusion, we had somebody in jail, and it
2:55
Speaker 2: was again, I know we're not supposed to do this, Joe,
2:59
Speaker 2: but as a parent, as a father, if something happens
3:03
Speaker 2: to my child under my watch, it's my responsibility. It's
3:07
Speaker 2: our job as parents to protect our children from the
3:10
Speaker 2: monsters and the bad people. And when we introduce the
3:13
Speaker 2: monsters and bad people into their life, then it's on us.
3:17
Speaker 1: In Madeleine's case, she's found out in this horrible abandoned
3:21
Speaker 1: area where she's recovered by law enforcement and the investigators
3:26
Speaker 1: out there after having searched for her.
3:28
Speaker 2: At a same time, the story of Madeleinesoto began as
3:32
Speaker 2: a thirteen year old girl is missing. And because that's
3:37
Speaker 2: how I end up coming into these stories with Nancy
3:39
Speaker 2: Grace and some of the other stuff that we do,
3:41
Speaker 2: you dig it from the very beginning. She's missing, and
3:44
Speaker 2: here was the drill. She was being taken to school.
3:47
Speaker 2: She's thirteen by her mother's longtime boyfriend, not some short
3:51
Speaker 2: time guy she just met, but a long time influence
3:54
Speaker 2: in their home, and he took her to school. Now,
3:59
Speaker 2: the first thing we were told is that maybe at
4:02
Speaker 2: that age, Madeline said she was embarrassed of his car
4:06
Speaker 2: and didn't want him to drop her off at school,
4:08
Speaker 2: so he dropped her off a couple of blocks from
4:10
Speaker 2: the school so nobody would see her, so she wouldn't
4:12
Speaker 2: be embarrassed. Now that story made sense in a very
4:15
Speaker 2: small way, because I've had a thirteen year old daughter
4:19
Speaker 2: that was embarrassed. If I breathed and so I understand that.
4:23
Speaker 2: But as we started following it, there was another thing
4:26
Speaker 2: that came up, and that was on her cell phone.
4:30
Speaker 2: There was a note that she wrote to a friend
4:32
Speaker 2: that when she turned thirteen, she was going to move
4:34
Speaker 2: out and live in the woods. So police looked at
4:38
Speaker 2: that and said, hey, we got to go check the woods.
4:40
Speaker 2: She might have done it. She just turned thirteen. But
4:43
Speaker 2: in my mind, when I saw that, Joe as somebody
4:45
Speaker 2: who reads these stories and follows them up and has
4:47
Speaker 2: to research them, I thought she was saying, there's a
4:50
Speaker 2: monster in my house, in my life, I got to
4:53
Speaker 2: get away from.
4:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's so what would compel a thirteen year old
4:58
Speaker 1: to want to put that, to leave the comfort of
5:01
Speaker 1: her home to go live in the woods in.
5:05
Speaker 2: Florida Orlando where it's humid?
5:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, what's going to make you leave
5:12
Speaker 1: the comfort of your you know, environmentally controlled air conditioning
5:17
Speaker 1: and soft bed with a pillow and food to eat.
5:21
Speaker 1: And also the other thing you have to consider. I
5:24
Speaker 1: think as an investigator, you start to talk about kids,
5:27
Speaker 1: and you know, I was reflecting back, you know, the
5:29
Speaker 1: changes that kids go through it at this age, in
5:32
Speaker 1: this age. For some reason, the twelve and thirteen year
5:35
Speaker 1: old age. You've got this introduction in hormones that are
5:40
Speaker 1: raging throughout the body. I know that's road to say that,
5:43
Speaker 1: but it's the truth, you know. And you'll have kids
5:46
Speaker 1: that will just suddenly for no reason. I know, parents
5:49
Speaker 1: in the sound of my voice can identify with this.
5:51
Speaker 1: You'll have a child that will just start raging in
5:55
Speaker 1: front of you and there's no explanation. You know, it
5:57
Speaker 1: just comes out of nowhere. And there are a lot
6:01
Speaker 1: of kids. You know, you got the old image of
6:03
Speaker 1: the you know, the old hobo walking down the road
6:05
Speaker 1: with a stick on his shoulder. You know, he's got
6:07
Speaker 1: his you know, his belongings tied up and the handkerchief
6:11
Speaker 1: hanging off of his back. And you're thinking, you know,
6:13
Speaker 1: kids are going to run away, and kids do run away.
6:15
Speaker 1: That's been that's been an issue for years and years,
6:19
Speaker 1: you know, milk cartons and all these sorts of things.
6:21
Speaker 1: But you know, when you're getting out to the heart
6:22
Speaker 1: of it as an investigator and you begin to kind
6:25
Speaker 1: of peel peel these layers back, you think, okay, now,
6:29
Speaker 1: was there something some kind of stimulus if you will,
6:33
Speaker 1: if you look at it, you know, from the perspective
6:36
Speaker 1: of of you know, a scientific experiment that was introduced
6:40
Speaker 1: into the equation that's going to compel this child to
6:45
Speaker 1: leave that environment. Why why would she? You know, would
6:49
Speaker 1: she do that?
6:50
Speaker 2: I don't think they did that. Okay, you and I
6:53
Speaker 2: both know that they're in an investigation. There's not just
6:58
Speaker 2: a parallel investigation that the police force runs. They're also
7:02
Speaker 2: running game on the media. They give the media the
7:06
Speaker 2: story they need to cover so they get the information out,
7:09
Speaker 2: especially if you're actually looking for a thirteen year old girl.
7:12
Speaker 2: And then the parallel investigation of here's what the evidence
7:16
Speaker 2: looks like. It looks like maybe she met somebody at
7:20
Speaker 2: this church where he'd where her mom's boyfriend dropped her off.
7:24
Speaker 2: But the reality is we need to take a really
7:26
Speaker 2: good look at mom's boyfriend because he's probably the most
7:30
Speaker 2: likely story here. So the police are doing two things
7:34
Speaker 2: and telling us a third. So, okay, they have the
7:38
Speaker 2: story that she wrote something about wanting to live in
7:40
Speaker 2: the woods when she turned thirteen, Well, why thirteen If
7:42
Speaker 2: you're going to live in the woods, what's the difference
7:43
Speaker 2: between twelve and thirteen? That's for starters. But second of all,
7:46
Speaker 2: the story was that she was embarrassed by the car,
7:49
Speaker 2: so he dropped her off to save her the embarrassment.
7:53
Speaker 2: And we the media, we were told that there was
7:56
Speaker 2: video showing her at this church right there on the
7:59
Speaker 2: main road, and that it appeared she was waiting for somebody.
8:02
Speaker 2: So that led us to believe that maybe she had
8:05
Speaker 2: been talked to online, had communicated with somebody who made
8:09
Speaker 2: arrangements to meet her at this location at this time,
8:12
Speaker 2: and that she had been picked up and she was gone.
8:14
Speaker 2: And that has happened so many times, and we've done
8:17
Speaker 2: plenty of stories on those that don't turn out good.
8:20
Speaker 2: And so there was that story, and then there was
8:22
Speaker 2: the sheriff. The sheriff was very public. He called press conferences.
8:27
Speaker 2: He said, this is what we're doing, this is what
8:29
Speaker 2: we're looking for. This is what we have found, very direct,
8:32
Speaker 2: very fast. Something you and I have brought up over
8:35
Speaker 2: the last several shows, Joe, the number of video cameras
8:37
Speaker 2: that exist in surveillance. People have them at home now
8:40
Speaker 2: with our doorbell cameras. Many building, schools, churches have digital
8:47
Speaker 2: coverage of surveillance cameras because they are inexpensive, so they
8:50
Speaker 2: have access to all these cameras that can follow movement
8:53
Speaker 2: and so police having that on top of having cell phones.
8:57
Speaker 2: And by the way, one of the things things police
9:00
Speaker 2: caught onto very early on was that Madeline didn't take
9:05
Speaker 2: her cell phone with her to school. Now, if she
9:07
Speaker 2: was going to school that day and she her plan
9:09
Speaker 2: was to either meet up with somebody else or to
9:11
Speaker 2: go off on the wood, whatever it was, her communication
9:14
Speaker 2: with the world started and ended with her phone and
9:16
Speaker 2: she left that at home. So there were a number
9:18
Speaker 2: of things going here that had the police really on
9:21
Speaker 2: target with what they were doing. They were able to
9:25
Speaker 2: track down the uh boyfriend's cell phone and while they were,
9:31
Speaker 2: you know, they have to do all sorts of different
9:33
Speaker 2: legal thing wrangling. They can't just grab your phone. Hey,
9:36
Speaker 2: let me look at your phone. They can't do that.
9:38
Speaker 2: And if you're unwilling, you know, they'll ask you for it. Hey, Dave, look,
9:42
Speaker 2: you're not a suspect or anything. Well, they know they
9:43
Speaker 2: won't say that. They never say you're not a suspect.
9:45
Speaker 2: They say no, they'll never tell you that. They tell this, Dave, look,
9:48
Speaker 2: we really want you to help find your you know,
9:51
Speaker 2: your daughter, your girlfriend's daugh or whatever.
9:53
Speaker 1: You try to appeal to your humanity.
9:55
Speaker 2: Look, you're man, we know you're not We know you're
9:57
Speaker 2: not involved. Can I take a look at your phone?
10:00
Speaker 1: Yeah?
10:00
Speaker 2: No, you can't take a look at my phone. I
10:02
Speaker 2: don't know if you're I don't know what kind of
10:04
Speaker 2: person you are. No, you can't look at my phone. Okay,
10:08
Speaker 2: then we'll get a search for it. And when they
10:10
Speaker 2: get then they're going to get a search warrant for that,
10:13
Speaker 2: and then they're going to find out what's on your phone.
10:14
Speaker 2: And that's what actually tripped up Steven Stearns. That's where
10:19
Speaker 2: the truth of the investigation came out because the police
10:22
Speaker 2: put him under arrest. We got stuff on his phone.
10:25
Speaker 2: They didn't give us a lot of very specific stuff,
10:27
Speaker 2: if you remember Joe, they're very vague, but it was
10:29
Speaker 2: enough for us to believe there was some type of
10:31
Speaker 2: child pornography found on this man's phone that led them
10:34
Speaker 2: to believe he was not just involved, he was the
10:36
Speaker 2: person behind the disappearance of Madalinsoto. And when the police
10:40
Speaker 2: announced while we're still looking for her, hoping he had
10:45
Speaker 2: stashed her somewhere, that she was hidden, that she was
10:47
Speaker 2: I mean, hoping all these horrible things would be true,
10:49
Speaker 2: because all those horrible things were better than the fact
10:51
Speaker 2: that she would be dead. And the police came out
10:54
Speaker 2: three days in and said, we believe she's dead. They
10:57
Speaker 2: never do that. Police never do that, Joe. Have you
11:00
Speaker 2: ever seen police come out during a search when we're
11:03
Speaker 2: looking in the woods, we're looking off the road with dogs,
11:05
Speaker 2: we're looking in that I wrote that down on our
11:09
Speaker 2: questionnaire for you. Have you ever seen a sheriff come
11:12
Speaker 2: out and say, we believe we're looking for a body
11:15
Speaker 2: she's dead.
11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah. The one thing that investigators can impart to family
11:23
Speaker 1: and friends and those that are vested in the life
11:28
Speaker 1: of a child like Madeline is hope. But as we
11:33
Speaker 1: can tell, it turned out early on that i'll hope
11:38
Speaker 1: in Madeleine's case was lost. You think about what must
12:00
Speaker 1: it be like when you're looking for a child and
12:04
Speaker 1: you're an investigator and you do have hope at that
12:09
Speaker 1: moment in time, and suddenly suddenly there is that instance
12:15
Speaker 1: where something that you're holding in your hand, as small
12:20
Speaker 1: as a smartphone, for instance, opens up a world to
12:25
Speaker 1: arguably some of the most evil that could be perpetrated
12:32
Speaker 1: upon a child. It's no wonder that hope is lost
12:37
Speaker 1: at that moment time, because suddenly you have a key
12:39
Speaker 1: that unlocks this door. When you begin thinking about what
12:43
Speaker 1: happened to her, I think that police, when they saw
12:46
Speaker 1: all of this data, Dave, you can see how the
12:51
Speaker 1: police at that moment time began as zero in on Stearns.
12:54
Speaker 2: At this point we were four days into the investigation
12:56
Speaker 2: of looking for three days actually when the sheriff sheriff
13:00
Speaker 2: said we do not believe she's alive. It shocked me,
13:04
Speaker 2: as somebody who covers these it shocked me when he
13:05
Speaker 2: said it. But then I thought he'd already told her mom.
13:08
Speaker 2: He'd already talked to the family and said and gave
13:10
Speaker 2: them the reason why now we didn't know it at
13:13
Speaker 2: that moment. What the family knew, the family had already
13:17
Speaker 2: been told the evidence they had, and the evidence that
13:20
Speaker 2: they had against mister Stephen Sterns, the man who had
13:23
Speaker 2: been living in that home together with as stepdad, even
13:27
Speaker 2: though he was mom's boyfriend, he had been there for
13:29
Speaker 2: a number of years and had been a father figure
13:32
Speaker 2: for Madeline Soto. And what the police told them was, well,
13:37
Speaker 2: first things, first, we saw him saw Steven Stearns on
13:41
Speaker 2: video at about seven thirty in the morning, the day
13:43
Speaker 2: he was supposed to take Madeline to school, we saw
13:47
Speaker 2: him putting her backpack and her school issued laptop into
13:52
Speaker 2: a dumpster in the back of your apartment complex.
13:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, that amazes me that people that gauge in this
14:02
Speaker 1: this kind of activity. As dark as this is, and
14:06
Speaker 1: trust me, this is very dark. It's not so much
14:09
Speaker 1: that what was contained in her backpack was dark or
14:13
Speaker 1: what was on her It's probably a chrome book. I
14:15
Speaker 1: think that a lot of these schools are iss chrome books.
14:17
Speaker 1: It's not that that stuff's dark, it's just that they
14:21
Speaker 1: know what else they have. I think, what's going to
14:24
Speaker 1: tie them back to the location of a missing child,
14:27
Speaker 1: or in a child that is a homicide victim. They
14:31
Speaker 1: would be so bold as to try to distance themselves
14:34
Speaker 1: from any kind of evidence of her existence, as if
14:37
Speaker 1: she's you know, vanished off of the face of the earth.
14:40
Speaker 1: That they have to have an awareness, Dave that CCTV
14:44
Speaker 1: is round, But yet they will go to go to
14:46
Speaker 1: a place like a dumpster and toss this stuff in.
14:50
Speaker 1: And you know, and the thing about the thing about dumpsters,
14:54
Speaker 1: you know, when we begin to search them, and I've
14:57
Speaker 1: had to go, I've had to climb inside of dumpsters
15:00
Speaker 1: for years and years and dig through look for items.
15:04
Speaker 1: I've had to look for elements of the body, body parts, clothing,
15:09
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff. And you know, someday I plan
15:12
Speaker 1: on doing a show on nothing but landfills and searching
15:15
Speaker 1: for bodies and those kinds of locations. But you know,
15:18
Speaker 1: we have a method to do this, and it's painstaking work.
15:21
Speaker 1: But you know, when you have when you have CCTV
15:25
Speaker 1: that gives you an idea of where you know where
15:29
Speaker 1: something might be. It kind of narrows it down for
15:31
Speaker 1: you. You know, something that might that might have connection. And
15:35
Speaker 1: the quality of the video has to be really good
15:39
Speaker 1: because they were specifically able to identify this book back
15:43
Speaker 1: and then you know, once they get their hands on it,
15:45
Speaker 1: they can tie it back to her directly. And you
15:47
Speaker 1: got this guy that's that's placing the stuff in here
15:50
Speaker 1: without a care in the world, right at least seemingly.
15:53
Speaker 2: And this is a time well before he was supposed
15:57
Speaker 2: to take her to school.
15:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's yeah. And so that again goes back
16:02
Speaker 1: to a post mortem toon line because.
16:05
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you, because Joe, you know, we
16:06
Speaker 2: had we live in an area Joe and I both
16:08
Speaker 2: live in the same area. I don't know if y'all
16:10
Speaker 2: know that, but we did. Yeah, even though we're both
16:12
Speaker 2: from very different parts of the country and we work
16:14
Speaker 2: on national television and radio broadcast networks, but we lived
16:17
Speaker 2: within fifteen minutes of each other.
16:19
Speaker 1: We never knew.
16:20
Speaker 2: It was never funny, but in our area, children tend
16:23
Speaker 2: to go to school their uh elementary and junior high
16:26
Speaker 2: schools take in about seven thirty eight o'clock in the morning. Well,
16:30
Speaker 2: at the school that Madeleine Soto went to, her school
16:33
Speaker 2: day did not begin until nine thirty, and so police
16:37
Speaker 2: already had a few things in their back pocket that
16:40
Speaker 2: we were unaware of. I look at it from my standpoint,
16:43
Speaker 2: I was thinking about when my children would go to school,
16:46
Speaker 2: and well, eight thirty in the morning, okay, where was he?
16:51
Speaker 2: He was dropping her off near the school at eight thirty,
16:54
Speaker 2: according to Stephen Stearns. But police were like, why were
16:59
Speaker 2: you dropping her on there? An hour before her school
17:03
Speaker 2: day was going to begin. So police knew certain things
17:06
Speaker 2: they were not putting out to the public. And that's
17:08
Speaker 2: where this came in. Two hours before he's begin to
17:11
Speaker 2: take her to school, he's getting rid of her school
17:12
Speaker 2: issued laptop and her backpack. The backpack that we do
17:15
Speaker 2: know was described because we had it as part of
17:18
Speaker 2: our descriptors of things she had with her.
17:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, because you know, they're listen, the police are
17:25
Speaker 1: not going they're going to exhaust every avenue, you know,
17:28
Speaker 1: if they're if they're invested in this case, and in
17:32
Speaker 1: most cases involving kids that are missing, they're going to
17:35
Speaker 1: pull every bit of footage that they possibly can in
17:38
Speaker 1: order to try to track these kids down. Any child are,
17:42
Speaker 1: you know, even an elderly person that's at risk, They're
17:46
Speaker 1: going to try to do everything that they possibly can to,
17:50
Speaker 1: you know, kind of tighten down the focus so that
17:52
Speaker 1: they can begin to understand it. That's why I'm so
17:54
Speaker 1: shocked by the fact that not that, and I'm glad
17:58
Speaker 1: that he didn't take more care, but he didn't. It's
18:01
Speaker 1: like he had very little self awareness. And I think
18:03
Speaker 1: that you can see that thread running through all of
18:06
Speaker 1: this behavior, very little self awareness until it gets to
18:09
Speaker 1: this critical moment and then where her life ends.
18:12
Speaker 2: Joe, the part that got me in all of his
18:15
Speaker 2: friends is that, according to the affidavit that we've now
18:18
Speaker 2: seen that's thirty six pages long, they actually have Stearns
18:24
Speaker 2: allegedly on video driving the car and they can see
18:28
Speaker 2: Madeline's body in the vehicle and she was already dead.
18:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so he's yeah, go ahead, no sorry, I'll
18:36
Speaker 1: can say.
18:36
Speaker 2: Is that So here you've got a guy that is
18:38
Speaker 2: on video throwing away her backpack and her laptop and
18:42
Speaker 2: then he's driving with her dead body in the car. Yeah,
18:46
Speaker 2: and they can see it from these surveillance cameras. You
18:48
Speaker 2: said he had no awareness. That points to zero awareness
18:53
Speaker 2: of what was he thinking? Was he in some kind
18:55
Speaker 2: Could he use that as a defense, Joe, You've seen
18:57
Speaker 2: this everywhere. But would he be able to say that
19:00
Speaker 2: he was so out of himself, he was so crazed
19:04
Speaker 2: by whatever had taken him over in that moment that
19:07
Speaker 2: he wasn't thinking smart enough to even cover that track.
19:10
Speaker 1: Well, let's don't give him that idea for the defense
19:12
Speaker 1: because they'll probably snap it up. And here's what I've
19:15
Speaker 1: always thought about these cases that are over the top
19:18
Speaker 1: like this that I work on, or not work on,
19:20
Speaker 1: but cover in the media. It's almost as if the
19:24
Speaker 1: more grotesque and the more absurd things are, as you know,
19:28
Speaker 1: they reach such a level of horror that is used
19:32
Speaker 1: by the defense many times to attempt to demonstrate that
19:37
Speaker 1: the person is in some way incapacitated mentally, you know,
19:41
Speaker 1: they're not capable of making good decisions, Whereas I think
19:44
Speaker 1: that maybe years and years ago they would have said
19:47
Speaker 1: this is evidence of evil, right, and so it's not
19:52
Speaker 1: necessarily like that anymore. You've got a man. And again
19:56
Speaker 1: we have to go back to the timeline, and I'm
19:57
Speaker 1: hoping that we're going to learn more putting a finer
20:01
Speaker 1: point on the post mortem interval relative to her remains.
20:07
Speaker 1: When that finally does come about, when you're looking at
20:12
Speaker 1: her and you're thinking, well, first off, he's got her
20:16
Speaker 1: riding about in the car with him. The police at
20:20
Speaker 1: least have alluded to the fact that they could tell
20:23
Speaker 1: that she was deceased. Now what does that mean. That
20:26
Speaker 1: means that she's obviously goes without saying she's not moving,
20:30
Speaker 1: But was she postured in some particular way where it
20:33
Speaker 1: looks like she's unconscious, she might be leaning on the door,
20:38
Speaker 1: she's slumped over, or was it something else. Did they
20:41
Speaker 1: have such a high elevation of the camera where they
20:44
Speaker 1: could see down into the interior of the vehicle and
20:47
Speaker 1: appreciate some kind of other odd posturing within the vehicle,
20:51
Speaker 1: and I'd like to know, and hopefully this is going
20:54
Speaker 1: to come out as well as what the status of
20:56
Speaker 1: her clothing was. And I think that that plays a
20:59
Speaker 1: very key role here, Dave, because as we know, and
21:03
Speaker 1: as we're about to reveal, what does child endured, what
21:08
Speaker 1: she went through from the perspective of this individual being
21:14
Speaker 1: in her life are things that even I on this
21:18
Speaker 1: show will not even begin to describe. I hesitate to
21:39
Speaker 1: use the word relief. I think there's an abiding sadness
21:46
Speaker 1: with it. Though. If you're on a search team and
21:51
Speaker 1: you're trying to find a child and you're hoping against
21:57
Speaker 1: hope that they might be alive, I don't know that
22:02
Speaker 1: you feel relief when you come across the broken body
22:08
Speaker 1: of a small child. You know that that sort of
22:13
Speaker 1: thing haunts haunts those of us in investigations. It does
22:16
Speaker 1: for years and years. I can still see the faces
22:18
Speaker 1: of children from forty years ago, David. You know, they
22:23
Speaker 1: never they never leave you at all. And I can
22:27
Speaker 1: promise you that these heroes that were out there doing
22:33
Speaker 1: this search are going to be haunted by what they
22:37
Speaker 1: saw and what was rawt at the hands of this monster.
22:41
Speaker 2: And that's where maybe because I don't know, I only
22:48
Speaker 2: know what I'm told. Rarely do I even see pictures
22:52
Speaker 2: unless I have to. It's a choice for me, thankfully
22:55
Speaker 2: that I don't have to dig in that far. I'm
22:58
Speaker 2: not one of those people that out there doing that,
23:01
Speaker 2: but my heart breaks every time I do, because my
23:03
Speaker 2: mindset when somebody is missing, which is why I was
23:07
Speaker 2: so shocked that the police came out and said, we
23:09
Speaker 2: know she's dead. We believe she's dead, because I always
23:12
Speaker 2: think of jc Dugard. I think of her, in particular,
23:15
Speaker 2: being gone, taken right in front of her stepfather, snatched
23:18
Speaker 2: right off the street, and being gone for eighteen years
23:22
Speaker 2: and turning back up. And I think about that every
23:27
Speaker 2: time some child goes missing. Well, there's always a chance,
23:30
Speaker 2: you know, there's always a chance. And then my heart
23:32
Speaker 2: breaks when we got it, you know, you find out, Okay,
23:35
Speaker 2: now we've got another boyfriend. He has usually they have
23:39
Speaker 2: a criminal record, but now we find out that his
23:41
Speaker 2: phone is eat up with horrible things.
23:43
Speaker 1: We know that.
23:43
Speaker 2: The minute they gave him a chance to speak, he
23:45
Speaker 2: lawyered up. He said, lawyer, won't you just talk to us?
23:48
Speaker 2: Look You've got to have some relationship with this girl.
23:51
Speaker 2: You know, you were in her life since she was
23:52
Speaker 2: eight years old. Please help us, help us lawyer, help
23:57
Speaker 2: us find lawyer. And so when they did find her, Joe,
24:02
Speaker 2: what did what did police discover when they found the
24:06
Speaker 2: body of Madeline Soto?
24:09
Speaker 1: Well, we we don't really know what they found at
24:11
Speaker 1: this point in time because they're not releasing a lot
24:14
Speaker 1: of information. We do know that she was recovered in
24:18
Speaker 1: a wooded area. And look, and I understand, I think
24:23
Speaker 1: that a lot of us that that are familiar with
24:28
Speaker 1: this case and that have been hoping against hope that
24:31
Speaker 1: she would resurface alive. We were hoping, we're hoping to understand,
24:38
Speaker 1: you know, precisely what did happen to her. But you know,
24:42
Speaker 1: we we don't have that data as yet. We do
24:46
Speaker 1: not have a cause of death in Madeline's case. I'm
24:50
Speaker 1: still trying to understand why that has not been released
24:53
Speaker 1: to this point. But can I just tell you what
24:55
Speaker 1: we do have, Dave, we and let me let me
25:00
Speaker 1: just kind of throw a date out to you, Okay,
25:03
Speaker 1: a date range, And I want everybody to listen to this.
25:07
Speaker 1: We have date ranges on Stern's phone that begin you ready,
25:17
Speaker 1: June nineteenth, twenty nineteen, and it ends February twenty sixth,
25:26
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. You know what's contained in that day
25:30
Speaker 1: Graphic images, graphic images going back all these years. Now,
25:34
Speaker 1: let's do let's do a little arithmetic here. Madeline is thirteen, right,
25:42
Speaker 1: and so let's do the calculation on that. It's twenty
25:45
Speaker 1: twenty four right now. And let's just say we'll ballpark
25:49
Speaker 1: it and say that Madeline was born in what year
25:56
Speaker 1: two thousand?
25:57
Speaker 2: If she had just turned thirteen when you were missing.
26:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so eleven twenty eleven, Dave, So twenty years old,
26:07
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. Day, this child, this precious angel, since twenty nineteen,
26:19
Speaker 1: when she was eight years old, Dave, she all of
26:23
Speaker 1: her teeth have not come in yet, Mark that. Just
26:28
Speaker 1: think about that. She's still experiencing growing pains throughout her body.
26:33
Speaker 1: Mom's having to buy new clothes because she's growing. We
26:37
Speaker 1: know what that's like if you're a parent. Bedtime, bedtime's
26:41
Speaker 1: supposed to be at eight or nine. Got to get
26:44
Speaker 1: to bed, honey, It's time to go to bed. The
26:47
Speaker 1: child cannot yet fully take care of themselves. Eight years old,
26:53
Speaker 1: eight years old, and there are images on this person's
26:57
Speaker 1: phone going back all those years now for us, you know,
27:02
Speaker 1: as old people in the audience, I count myself as old.
27:08
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen doesn't seem that long ago. But when you're
27:12
Speaker 1: living in a hell like this, and trust me it was,
27:18
Speaker 1: it probably seemed like an eternity for her. Back to
27:21
Speaker 1: your earlier comment, Dave, the comment that she had actually made.
27:27
Speaker 1: I think she would have rather have lived in the woods,
27:33
Speaker 1: in the heat, in the humidity, covered with bugs than
27:38
Speaker 1: live this existence. And she even had that awareness, you know,
27:44
Speaker 1: going back. You know, all this time, she knew that
27:48
Speaker 1: it was bad, even at her young age, that she
27:51
Speaker 1: knew that there had to be something that was not
27:54
Speaker 1: abnormal like this, that it would be more normal and
27:57
Speaker 1: more secure for her to live a way from her
28:00
Speaker 1: home than to endwell this structure with this person because
28:06
Speaker 1: of everything that he had done to her.
28:08
Speaker 2: Day Now, Joe, when you and I look at this,
28:09
Speaker 2: we're coming from the standpoint of, how is it possible
28:12
Speaker 2: that you could have somebody in your world that is
28:17
Speaker 2: living with you, is around you and yours every minute
28:20
Speaker 2: of the day, and you don't know anything's going on.
28:24
Speaker 2: How is that possible? Now, I'm not blaming the mother.
28:26
Speaker 2: I'm questioning the mother, that's all. And I don't think
28:29
Speaker 2: that's an I don't think that's a bad thing to do,
28:31
Speaker 2: because this thirteen year old girl is dead. Joe, I
28:34
Speaker 2: didn't do it. You didn't do it. Somebody who knew
28:37
Speaker 2: that girl since before all of her teeth came out.
28:40
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, I have a grandson that's eight, Joe,
28:44
Speaker 2: and I know the children he's around. I know because
28:47
Speaker 2: of the friends you know I and it breaks my
28:50
Speaker 2: heart to think that nobody was watching out for her
28:52
Speaker 2: from that age until she's thirteen, where she's writing, I'd
28:56
Speaker 2: rather be in the woods. I'm not here. I'm just saying,
29:01
Speaker 2: do you have somebody in your life that is around
29:03
Speaker 2: your child that you don't that's been around them for
29:06
Speaker 2: years and you don't know this?
29:08
Speaker 1: How do you? Well?
29:09
Speaker 2: Before I lose my crap here, this guy had so
29:13
Speaker 2: many pieces of inappropriate child pornography on his cell phone
29:23
Speaker 2: that I have to wonder, Joe Scott Morgan, how is
29:26
Speaker 2: it possible somebody can have that on their phone and
29:28
Speaker 2: you wouldn't know that doesn't I mean, how do they
29:31
Speaker 2: What are they doing in their world that they can
29:34
Speaker 2: have Are they that crazy? They can have this whole
29:37
Speaker 2: thing going on over here in the eye it from you.
29:38
Speaker 2: You don't see it?
29:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't. I don't understand that either, that you
29:42
Speaker 1: could be so numb and lack such self awareness that
29:45
Speaker 1: you don't know that this is that this is going on.
29:47
Speaker 1: And there have been when it comes to Stephen Stearns,
29:52
Speaker 1: there have been sixty new charges now to this point
29:55
Speaker 1: at the time of of this recording.
29:57
Speaker 2: I got to ask you about these, Joe, because of
29:59
Speaker 2: the number, because I don't understand the charges. I mean,
30:01
Speaker 2: I understand them, but I don't know what they actually mean,
30:04
Speaker 2: and I know you do. So let me start off
30:07
Speaker 2: with one thing, and it goes back to when police
30:12
Speaker 2: saw what they said was Madeline in the car with
30:16
Speaker 2: Stephen Stearns. I want to get this timeline square away,
30:18
Speaker 2: so you know where she was when they found her.
30:21
Speaker 2: You mentioned that we don't know that much about it. Well,
30:24
Speaker 2: we do know that the morning that they saw Stephen
30:29
Speaker 2: Sterns getting rid of her backpack and her laptop in
30:32
Speaker 2: the dumpster behind their apartment complex, that he came back
30:37
Speaker 2: to the apartment complex and was leaving again around eight
30:40
Speaker 2: nineteen that morning he was. That's where they saw Madeline
30:47
Speaker 2: in the car, in the vehicle with Stearns, and they
30:50
Speaker 2: believe she was already dead at that point. Now near
30:54
Speaker 2: where her body was found. It was out in this
30:58
Speaker 2: area off of Old Hickory Tree Road, in a very
31:01
Speaker 2: rural part of Astola Oceola, Ostiola County. Now, she was
31:07
Speaker 2: found in this area where Stephen Stearns was seen for
31:12
Speaker 2: about an hour and a half changing the tire on
31:14
Speaker 2: a vehicle. So what they're trying to and she was
31:19
Speaker 2: found in the clothing she was described as wearing that morning,
31:22
Speaker 2: we do know that much. So they saw her what
31:27
Speaker 2: they believed to be dead in the back of the
31:29
Speaker 2: in the car, I don't know if it was back
31:30
Speaker 2: or front, but in the car with him at eight
31:32
Speaker 2: nineteen that morning and then out in this rural area.
31:35
Speaker 2: He was based on his cell phone and other information
31:37
Speaker 2: eyewitness accounts of the car being there for an hour
31:40
Speaker 2: and a half, and she was found near that area
31:44
Speaker 2: where he was allegedly changing the tire on the car.
31:51
Speaker 2: We don't know what. We don't know everything that he
31:53
Speaker 2: did to her in life. We don't know everything he
31:55
Speaker 2: did to her in death. But that does kind of
31:57
Speaker 2: set the stage for you of what he did to
31:59
Speaker 2: get rid of her body. He wasn't thinking things through
32:02
Speaker 2: when he threw the bag in the back and the dumpster.
32:05
Speaker 1: No, he wasn't. And I wonder, I wonder relative to
32:08
Speaker 1: the changing of the tire if that was if that
32:12
Speaker 1: was planned, you know, to give.
32:15
Speaker 2: Was that a stage saying.
32:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that you can kind of alibi yourself relative
32:20
Speaker 1: to that you're moving about. People see you take a
32:23
Speaker 1: tire out, they might mistake that if you're removing the
32:28
Speaker 1: remains of a thirteen year old child and you're walking
32:31
Speaker 1: them off the road. But yet you come back and you're,
32:33
Speaker 1: you know, you're still feigning changing your tire. I don't know,
32:36
Speaker 1: maybe his tire was flat, but we do know that
32:39
Speaker 1: her remains were found, you know, close out there. I
32:42
Speaker 1: think one of the sidebars on this whole thing that
32:46
Speaker 1: was unfortunate was that the sheriff had actually sent out
32:50
Speaker 1: on social media an image that was apparently intended to
32:55
Speaker 1: be something that had something to do with the retire
32:58
Speaker 1: community in that in in his jurisdiction, but unfortunately it
33:01
Speaker 1: was actually an image of Madeline's body at the scene.
33:05
Speaker 1: And I know that there's tremendous regret over that. And again,
33:10
Speaker 1: you know, with phones, you never know you know what
33:13
Speaker 1: you're going to be sending out or what you know,
33:14
Speaker 1: what folks are going to be exposed to.
33:18
Speaker 2: Said a great day with smiley emoji.
33:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, and that's that's certainly a tragedy.
33:25
Speaker 2: And no it's not.
33:27
Speaker 1: I mean I don't think that that's the case. But unfortunately,
33:30
Speaker 1: this child who has just you know, I mean, look,
33:34
Speaker 1: it's it is, it's just kind of the exclamation point
33:40
Speaker 1: on all of this. And and I think that from
33:42
Speaker 1: the perspective of she this child is going to be
33:46
Speaker 1: when this does go to trial, that jury that's impaneled
33:53
Speaker 1: in this case, uh, they're going to be exposed to
33:57
Speaker 1: all of this, these horrible images that are there. And
34:01
Speaker 1: you know there's sixty charges right, have been filing.
34:05
Speaker 2: What does it mean when of those sixty charges there's
34:08
Speaker 2: eight counts of sexual battery of a child in her
34:10
Speaker 2: twelve What does that tell you, Joe.
34:13
Speaker 1: Well, it tells me that you know, she's she's thirteen, right,
34:17
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, we did the calculus on that that
34:24
Speaker 1: they had that this was going. Yeah, you know, when
34:27
Speaker 1: we go back to that date that solid date that
34:29
Speaker 1: benchmark and TOM that they discovered on him. There's some
34:34
Speaker 1: kind of tom stamping there that goes all the way
34:36
Speaker 1: back to twenty nineteen, Dave that this abuse has been happening.
34:40
Speaker 1: They can document this, and this is key here. They
34:44
Speaker 1: can document this all through this time. And one more
34:47
Speaker 1: thing I think that I'd like to address here that
34:51
Speaker 1: and I don't want to go too far field into
34:53
Speaker 1: forensic psychology where people you know, like you know, my
34:56
Speaker 1: friends like Karen Stark, you know, kind of they they're
35:00
Speaker 1: in that world of forensic psychology. But I do know this,
35:04
Speaker 1: with sexual predators and child sexual predators, they will actually
35:11
Speaker 1: they have time brackets that they work in our age brackets.
35:15
Speaker 1: Age brackets is the appropriate term where when a child
35:20
Speaker 1: ages out, they have no more utility for the abuser,
35:26
Speaker 1: they begin to look for somebody else that fits within
35:29
Speaker 1: that bracket. And this has been demonstrated several times over
35:33
Speaker 1: through in cases all over the country over the years.
35:36
Speaker 1: And the tragedy of this she's you know, we're saying
35:40
Speaker 1: that she's fully clothed, she's actually in the clothing of
35:43
Speaker 1: the day. If and when they charge him with homicide
35:49
Speaker 1: in Madeline's murder, I'm wondering if, if there's not necessarily
35:56
Speaker 1: going to be any kind of disruption or clothing, if
35:59
Speaker 1: he made this this decision at this moment time allegedly
36:05
Speaker 1: to take her life, if it was just like okay,
36:09
Speaker 1: he purposed that morning to end her life and place
36:12
Speaker 1: her body out there she had just aged out. Or
36:16
Speaker 1: is it going to be where we see some kind
36:19
Speaker 1: of trauma on her where he's beaten her to the
36:21
Speaker 1: point because she threatened. Perhaps she said I'm not going
36:25
Speaker 1: to live like this. Remember what she said? And I
36:27
Speaker 1: think that this is very important what you alluded to
36:29
Speaker 1: early on. She said she didn't want to She didn't
36:31
Speaker 1: want to in twell this world anymore. She wanted to
36:34
Speaker 1: live out in the woods. Well, maybe she had expressed
36:36
Speaker 1: that to him at that point in time. And look,
36:39
Speaker 1: he's got everything to lose here, because he's going to
36:43
Speaker 1: go in for as old timers, you say you're going
36:46
Speaker 1: in all day, pal, you know you're going in forever
36:49
Speaker 1: and ever. Amen, you're not going to see the light
36:52
Speaker 1: of day again.
36:53
Speaker 2: There was another thing on here, too, Joe. Okay, we
36:55
Speaker 2: had the eight counts of sexual battery of a child
36:57
Speaker 2: under twelve, Well we have five counts of sexual battery
37:00
Speaker 2: with a child between twelve and eighteen. Would that basically
37:06
Speaker 2: incorporate the time because they have video evidence on his phone?
37:11
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, and it's not just photographic, it's video evidence.
37:15
Speaker 1: So you've got apparently there's evidence of this going on,
37:20
Speaker 1: and I refuse, I'm not going down this road. I'm
37:23
Speaker 1: not going to get so deep into this, particularly given
37:29
Speaker 1: what we know at this point. If people want to
37:31
Speaker 1: read the affidavit, you know, you can find it. It's there,
37:36
Speaker 1: but it implies and what we're talking about here, and
37:39
Speaker 1: the reason this is important is that there are breaks
37:41
Speaker 1: in time here. It's not breaks, it's more like these
37:44
Speaker 1: benchmarks in time, and that's why this case is so strong. Dave,
37:48
Speaker 1: the electronic evidence, and of course what we're going to find,
37:51
Speaker 1: I think probably physically that she had gone through. There
37:55
Speaker 1: will be evidence of abuse. Oh yeah, this is a
37:58
Speaker 1: young girl, this is a grown man, and there will
38:01
Speaker 1: be evidence of abuse that has gone on forever and ever.
38:04
Speaker 1: And I would imagine that many times with children that
38:09
Speaker 1: have been sexually abused, they will act out in inappropriate
38:13
Speaker 1: manners many times. And when they go back to interview
38:17
Speaker 1: people that were peripheral to her say in school, like teachers,
38:22
Speaker 1: perhaps hopefully a counselor if they took time to spend
38:26
Speaker 1: time with Madeline, maybe she demonstrated something in the classroom
38:32
Speaker 1: or in social situations that seemed odd. And if you
38:37
Speaker 1: have someone that is a forensic psychologist that can go
38:40
Speaker 1: back and look at this and say, they can say, well,
38:42
Speaker 1: she fits a pattern. Here, she fits a pattern, and
38:46
Speaker 1: we can kind of identify this, and that would in
38:49
Speaker 1: fact be addressed in court. I got to tell Stearns
38:52
Speaker 1: is looking at a real uphill battle as they try
38:55
Speaker 1: to move forward with this case. But I do know
38:57
Speaker 1: this right now, somewhere out there there are other children
39:07
Speaker 1: like Madeline. It's incumbent upon us to be aware of
39:15
Speaker 1: that this is going on. It goes on every day,
39:19
Speaker 1: and unfortunately we have a light that has dimmed and
39:24
Speaker 1: it's now been snuffed out. The only thing that we
39:27
Speaker 1: can hope for is that there will be an ultimate
39:30
Speaker 1: price to be paid for these crimes. I'm Joseph Scott
39:36
Speaker 1: Morgan and this is body