ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – On Monday, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office released footage of an interview with Jennifer Soto, the mother of 13-year-old Madeline Soto, whose body was found over six months ago.
The interview took place on March 1, just hours before Madeline’s body was recovered from a wooded area in Osceola County.
That girl — Madeline Soto — was reported missing on Feb. 26 and found dead just a couple of days later, sparking a massive investigation into what exactly happened.
Throughout much of the interview, Jennifer Soto recounts the events leading up to Madeline Soto’s disappearance and what happened in the days afterward.
[TIMELINE: Here’s where things stand in the Madeline Soto case 6 months later]
According to Jennifer Soto, she had asked her daughter and Stephan Sterns — Jennifer Soto’s then-boyfriend and the man who would later be charged with killing Madeline — to sleep in the upstairs bedroom the night before Madeline’s disappearance so that Jennifer Soto could get a “good night’s sleep.”
However, after Madeline’s body was discovered, deputies would reveal evidence that Sterns had been sexually abusing the girl for years beforehand and regularly slept with her.
Deputies brought this up to Jennifer Soto over an hour into the interview, with one of the detectives saying he didn’t believe the sincerity of her emotions in recent news interviews.
“I believe that you became aware of their sexual relationship,” the detectives tells her. “I think at a certain point throughout this relationship, you became aware of it, and for whatever reason — your reasons are your reasons, whether it was discussed that it would stop, whether it was discussed how it would go — that you feel some sense of guilt.”
However, Jennifer Soto claimed she had “no idea.”
“(Sterns) never mentioned anything. I’ve never seen any signs,” she responds. “I tried watching her like a hawk. I thought I was doing a good job, but I wasn’t. I was oblivious to everything.”
Deputies also brought up the possibility of Madeline being pregnant.
“That’s what questions last night led me to believe when we started talking about her period,” Jennifer Soto states.
“I was told that her and her friend... that somebody found it weird that they were no longer on the same cycle. It could be because she’s a teenage girl. It could be that she missed her period,” the detective says back.
After more questioning, Jennifer says she had two pregnancy tests at home, though she hadn’t checked to see whether they were still there.
[WATCH: News 6′s “Justice for Madeline” series breaks down the investigation so far]
As the interview continues, detectives broached how after showing Jennifer Soto photos of Madeline’s sexual abuse taken from Sterns’ phone in the days prior, she suggested that Sterns should get a lawyer.
“So we showed you photos of Stephan raping (REDACTED), and the first thought you had was to ask his father if he should get a lawyer?” one detective asks.
“I didn’t see the rape. I didn’t know she was getting raped until yesterday. I saw the picture of the oral sex happening, and I knew that that was true, right? That was evidence. That’s for real. That’s (expletive) happening,” Jennifer Soto replies. “But I kept thinking, did going — I don’t know why, I, I can’t tell you why my brain kept thinking, ‘No, he didn’t kill her...’ I felt in my body she was still alive. She was still out there. I told (Sterns’ father) to get him a lawyer because I felt like you guys were chasing the wrong person. But you weren’t. You’re not.”
The detective pushes back, though, asserting that Jennifer was trying to protect Sterns.
“Since she was a child, since her victimization started under your roof, and you acted like it didn’t exist,” the detective states. “And knowing the victimization, knowing how ongoing it is, knowing that you saw a picture of it — not just us telling you, not me and him saying, ‘Hey, listen, he was being (REDACTED), I think they have a bad relationship.’ We showed you a picture of it, and you still protected him.”
Despite Jennifer crying throughout the interview, an incident report released by the Orange County Sheriff’s Office last month claims that her emotions “appeared fictitious.”
During portions of the interview, (she) continuously protected Stephan Sterns, was questioned about why she prioritizes Stephan Sterns over (REDACTED) and even at one point referred to the ‘sex stuff’ as not evil but the murder of (REDACTED) as ‘evil.’ The interview eventually ended, but (Soto’s mother) did not show the same level of emotion or care in regards to (REDACTED) ongoing victimization by Stephan Sterns than she did her disappearance. It appeared to me that she has already accepted that the victimization was happening.”
Incident Report by the Orange County Sheriff's Office
Near the end of the interview, a deputy asks whether Jennifer Soto would be returning to her condo.
“I don’t think I’m returning to my condo ever again,” she says. “I don’t want to. (Inaudible).”
News 6 has attached footage of the full interview at the top of this story.
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