Madeline Soto’s perverted killer has been handed 21 concurrent life sentences for raping and murdering the 13-year-old in a deal that lets him avoid the death penalty.
Stephan Sterns — the longtime boyfriend of Soto’s mom, Jenn Soto — pleaded guilty to 20 counts of sexual abuse and no contest to murder at a hearing Monday, a day before his trial was due to start in Florida.
In exchange, prosecutors removed the death penalty he’d faced for the shocking killing and yearslong campaign of abuse that started when his girlfriend’s daughter was just 11.
“I can’t grasp the selfishness of you, the deplorability of your actions,” the dead girl’s grieving father, Tyler Wallace, told his daughter’s killer through tears.
“You’re depraved, you’re weak, you’re a coward. It doesn’t heal with time,” the grieving dad said, according to ClickOrlando.
Madeline was reported missing when she failed to show up for school in February last year, a day after her 13th birthday.
Sterns was arrested two days later when “disturbing images” and videos that were “criminal and sexual in nature” — and which he had tried to delete — were discovered on his phone, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office said at the time.
Investigators later discovered that Sterns had been abusing Madeline since 2022, when she was just 11.
The missing 13-year-old girl’s body was found dumped in a wooded area six days after she was reported missing. Her autopsy showed that she had been strangled.
Sterns initially pleaded not guilty, but changed it Monday to no contest, meaning he did not have to detail the crime at trial.
“While nothing we do can bring Madeline back, I hope her family finds some measure of peace knowing that justice has been served,” state attorney Monique Worrell said Monday.
“The individual responsible has been sentenced to 21 concurrent life sentences and will never walk free again.
“He has also waived all of his rights to appeal, ensuring finality and sparing the family from reliving this trauma in courtrooms for years to come.”
