The Murder of Madeline Soto

True Crime Society

True Crime, Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Timestamp to skip intro: (11:57)

Madeline Soto had just celebrated her 13th birthday in February 2024. She had a small party with her grandmother Yolanda, and a few friends. She had been spending a lot of time with her grandmother. When Madeline had to go back to the home of her mother, Jennifer Soto, she cried.

Madeline and Jennifer were living in a condo with many roommates. One of the people living there was Stephan Sterns. Stephan and Jennifer had a relationship for years, but according to her, as of February 2024, they were no longer intimate.

Despite this, the sleeping arrangements in the home meant that Madeline and Stephan would share a bed. Jennifer had her own separate bedroom. This was explained because apparently the teen needed human contact to sleep and Jennifer needed her own space.

On February 26, 2024, Jennifer went to collect Madeline from school. She allegedly discovered that Madeline had not attended classes that day.

A search began for the teen. Her body was found in a wooded area five days later.

Stephan would end up being charged with Madeline’s murder. He was also charged with multiple counts of heinous crimes relating to children.

In July 2025, Stephan was sentenced to 21 concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for the role he played in Madeline’s abuse and murder.

Read our blog for Madeline here

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Transcript

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0:55.9	That's V-A-N-T-A.com slash G-O.
0:59.9	The True Crime Society podcast contains adult themes and violence
1:03.1	and is not intended for all audiences.
1:05.5	Listener discretion is advised.
1:07.6	And if you'd like to skip the intro or move to any specific part of the podcast, please refer
1:11.7	to the timestamps listed in the episode description. Thank you.
1:33.2	Thank you. What's up, guys?
1:37.5	Welcome back to another episode of the True Crime Society Podcast with Stephanie and Olivia.
1:41.3	It is August 7th, 2025 right now.
2:01.8	Relevant because, like we've been saying, we're recording a bunch of episodes to get ready for when I have this baby. It could be any time now. I'm 37 and a half weeks. My doctor said I'm on track for my due date, which is August 24th. So who knows, maybe there will be a baby by the time this episode comes out. But we're trying not to take, we're going to have one dark week probably.
2:08.7	And then we've recorded a good chunk of episodes to try to keep putting them out so that
2:13.5	you guys won't be without us for too long. We saw some people talking on Reddit and how they were excited for me,
2:19.6	but they were going to be sad to have a maternity leave break and they were saving up episodes.
	...

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