Found Deceased FL - Madeline Soto, 13, Missing Child Alert, 13500 blk Town Loop Blvd, Orlando, 26 Feb 2024 *arrest* #2

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I can't for the life of me figure out what would make her say she saw Madeline getting dressed for school at 8:00 a.m. when we know that's just not true, however.
Maybe it went something like this...
"Honey, you know they always investigate the boyfriend. The cops are going to waste a bunch of time giving me the third degree when they should be out searching for Maddie. If we say that we both saw her that morning, then maybe they won't focus on me and instead use their resources to find her."

Just a thought.
 
I would have run into the office screaming...is my daughter here ? Did you see her? I Can't find her
I would have also. That brings me to believe that there was no urgency because mom knew what happened. If MS knew how to get to grandmas office then I’d look there! Why did MS have her mom’s last name and not bio dad? Mother was on Facebook changing her name etc. that would be the last thing I would do. I might just delete it but spending time doing all of that when my baby girl is at the morgue????
 
Just a few of my thoughts based on some things I’ve read here…

Kissimmee is within Osceola County. SS didn’t cross jurisdictions (that we know of) to dispose of MS’s body. Her body was found within Osceola County but not within Kissimmee city limits. Mom and MS lived within Kissimmee limits, which is within Osceola county. MS’s school is in Orange County and this is where she was supposedly last seen according to information in the initial investigation. That is why Orange County had the case to start with. When it was determined that MS was seen on CCTV in Kissimmee (purportedly already dead in SS’s car), and that SA took place at MS’s home, which is also in Kissimmee, the investigation was handed over to Kissimmee police. When the search for her body took place, the tip was called in and her body was discovered, that would have been handled by Osceola County Sheriff’s office, likely with an assist from Kissimmee PD. These departments all typically have mutual jurisdiction—meaning they can act (search, arrest, investigate, etc.) across city or county lines in neighboring areas. That’s probably all about as clear as mud. My sources for all of this are family members in LE.

It seems to me from what we’ve heard so far of SS, he’s an adult that “failed to launch”, so to speak. He was still living in and out of his parents’ home, he didn’t seem to have consistent employment and he was driving his dad’s car (the Lincoln MKZ was said to be his dad’s). He spent his money on toys, games and hobbies that are mostly associated with children. He just doesn’t seem like a self-sufficient contributing-to-society adult. I’ve gathered all of this from SS’s Reddit and various news articles and videos. I speculate that we will hear a lot more on his past and mental health as this case makes its way through the investigation process and trial.

I’ve said here from the beginning that I wanted to hear from the mom. I speculate that we will hear a lot more in this area as well.

It’s not as easy or as simple as it may seem for a child victim of SA to “just tell someone”. The reasons for not telling are complicated and layered. A child likely feels completely alone, like they’re “bad” and that life as they know it would come crashing down if they told. They’re also told by the abuser that they can’t tell, for reasons that a child’s mind doesn’t question. A child may just think “this is how it is and it’s awful and I hate it and I wish he wouldn’t do this” but not know why they feel that way. Young children have simple minds and are taught that the adults “rule”. It’s complicated and very hard to explain. How do I know? I was that child. Every child is different, of course. But this is from my perspective.

All MY OPINION!!!
Excellent analysis, I'm sorry for what happened to you all kinds of abuse are disgusting and degrading to the victim.
 
Thanks for straightening that out. I gave SS too much credit thinking he might have researched and crossed jurisdictions. I actually looked at a map and thought Osceola was south of Kissimmee County. I'm sorry for making those mistakes.
I get it—there have been 3 different departments so far, so it’s confusing. I know the area so wanted to clarify if I could.
 
I’m confused as to why JS said nothing in her phone seemed concerning but police seemed to zero in on the text that MS allegedly wrote about wanting to live in the woods?

As a mother, I would be immediately concerned.

I would like to know if JS made calls to SS after realizing MS wasn’t at school. Did she call and say “hey, Madeline wasn’t at school…did she text or call you to let you know she wasn’t going to be waiting for me? That she went anywhere else?”

Did she text SS saying “I can’t find Madeline, she wasn’t at pick up”?

IMO if mom called 911 without texting/calling SS or calling grandma, family, friends, etc…that’s a red flag. JMHO.
 
Usually when a child dies, the media will interview friends and ask about the child. Has there been any media coverage of friends telling what kind of friend or kid she was? Did the mom ask any friends or classmates where she might be? The mom never says this in her interview.
Snipped for focus

There were a few comments from friends and classmates during the videos about the memorials to Maddie.

In one of the interviews the mom says they have contacted all of Maddie's friends and no one had seen her. I can't remember which one.

HTH
 
Just a few of my thoughts based on some things I’ve read here…

Kissimmee is within Osceola County. SS didn’t cross jurisdictions (that we know of) to dispose of MS’s body. Her body was found within Osceola County but not within Kissimmee city limits. Mom and MS lived within Kissimmee limits, which is within Osceola county. MS’s school is in Orange County and this is where she was supposedly last seen according to information in the initial investigation. That is why Orange County had the case to start with. When it was determined that MS was seen on CCTV in Kissimmee (purportedly already dead in SS’s car), and that SA took place at MS’s home, which is also in Kissimmee, the investigation was handed over to Kissimmee police. When the search for her body took place, the tip was called in and her body was discovered, that would have been handled by Osceola County Sheriff’s office, likely with an assist from Kissimmee PD. These departments all typically have mutual jurisdiction—meaning they can act (search, arrest, investigate, etc.) across city or county lines in neighboring areas. That’s probably all about as clear as mud. My sources for all of this are family members in LE.

It seems to me from what we’ve heard so far of SS, he’s an adult that “failed to launch”, so to speak. He was still living in and out of his parents’ home, he didn’t seem to have consistent employment and he was driving his dad’s car (the Lincoln MKZ was said to be his dad’s). He spent his money on toys, games and hobbies that are mostly associated with children. He just doesn’t seem like a self-sufficient contributing-to-society adult. I’ve gathered all of this from SS’s Reddit and various news articles and videos. I speculate that we will hear a lot more on his past and mental health as this case makes its way through the investigation process and trial.

I’ve said here from the beginning that I wanted to hear from the mom. I speculate that we will hear a lot more in this area as well.

It’s not as easy or as simple as it may seem for a child victim of SA to “just tell someone”. The reasons for not telling are complicated and layered. A child likely feels completely alone, like they’re “bad” and that life as they know it would come crashing down if they told. They’re also told by the abuser that they can’t tell, for reasons that a child’s mind doesn’t question. A child may just think “this is how it is and it’s awful and I hate it and I wish he wouldn’t do this” but not know why they feel that way. Young children have simple minds and are taught that the adults “rule”. It’s complicated and very hard to explain. How do I know? I was that child. Every child is different, of course. But this is from my perspective.

All MY OPINION!!!
Bless your heart!
 
No additional inmates currently showing up in Osceola County jail.
I looked at that earlier today out of curiosity and I'm only seeing people booked through March 4.
I might just delete it but spending time doing all of that when my baby girl is at the morgue????
A common response to this would be "people don't think straight when dealing with stuff like this" which is TRUE but why change your name when you could just...private it? You can still get message requests (and therefore nasty DMs) from non-friends but you can't be bombarded with strangers commenting on your posts. IDK. MOO.
 
her first interview right at the beginning she says she drove to the school, she wasnt there, so she drove around thinking she went to her mother's work office which she claimed was close to the school, THEN she went back to the school and the school was closed. then she emailed the school, they responded so then she called 911. (sheesh I was asking about that earlier :) and forgot whether she called 911 or the precinct...duh. well, she didnt call 911 until 8pm. seems like she was waiting for an email response from school before calling 911?

went into the school and spoke to someone....was that in her second interview? I dont remember that.

ETA: she told the press she didnt get the automated message until 6pm that she was absent. that is their time for end of day automated absence msgs (which parents are asking to change). so..........why the delay in calling 911???
What time did the teacher reply to the email? Both her and mom would have a copy with time and date stamps to show police. It had to be before 4:30/45 because mom had said when she heard from the teacher her daughter hadn’t been there all day that’s when she realized something was wrong and she called 911.

What time did mom call her daughter’s friends and find out no one had heard from her all day?

What time does the school notify parents of an absence? Because surely she’d have had a notification from the school before 8pm? So even if she didn’t call police immediately after hearing back from the teacher, surely she would have been notified by the school of the absence before 8pm, no? I just read and came back to add she said she got notified by the school at 6pm.

So many conflicting things.
 
Did you happen to make notes on the "deleted messages off of Madeline's phone"? I'm still not positive on exactly what that quote was.
From when asked by the interviewer what her fear is, does she think Maddie may have met someone and met up with them, JS says:

“From…she’s open to us, she’s open with us
about you know, if she’s got a crush with anyone and she told us she had a crush on someone at school. Um, and I looked at their messages, nothing was weird. I looked at all of her messages, all of her deleted messages…nothing seemed weird or it didn’t seem like she was talking to anyone, um, so I don’t feel like that’s the case. I feel like she might’ve been taken, um, just because this is not like her at all, to just disappear and not tell us, not let us know where she’s going or who she’s with. Um, yeah.”

Then the interviewer asks her next question..

ETA link

 
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From when asked by the interviewer what her fear is, does she think Maddie may have met someone and met up with them, JS says:

“From…she’s open to us, she’s open with us about you know, if she’s got a crush with anyone and she told us she had a crush on someone at school. Um, and I looked at their messages, nothing was weird. I looked at all of her messages, all of her deleted messages…nothing seemed weird or it didn’t seem like she was talking to anyone, um, so I don’t feel like that’s the case. I feel like she might’ve been taken, um, just because this is not like her at all, to just disappear and not tell us, not let us know where she’s going or who she’s with. Um, yeah.”

Then the interviewer asks her next question..
Thank you!!
 
She didn't look remotely afraid in that one interview where she was comforting him.
She didn’t look afraid in any media interviews I’ve watched. She was nervous in one (moo). All leg shaking jittery (which oddly stopped for a moment then resumed after a background sound stopped). I had wondered if she was in withdrawal from something or had started taking something that may have caused that shaking leg : body because it didn’t seem natural to me (moo).

She comforts the monster and that’s odd to me.

In another interview with creepy behind her she’s calm, cool and collected. She was waiting at home for a child who she didn’t think knew her own address but the same kid may have gone for a walk last Monday to Gran’s office near the school???
 
If MS was a “walker”, she could have just walked away from the school. At our school, a lot of parents park in the surrounding streets and wait for their kids to walk to them because it’s a quicker release than waiting in the car line. Once they are off school grounds, there’s no one checking that they get home with the right person. It’s not inconceivable to me that MS could walk away from school, yet still have Mom pick her up by car. I’m also curious if Mom picked her up routinely everyday or MS wandered around until Mom got there.

If SS was really sly, could he have come back between everything to simulate MS getting ready after discarding the backpack?
 
Usually when a child dies, the media will interview friends and ask about the child. Has there been any media coverage of friends telling what kind of friend or kid she was? Did the mom ask any friends or classmates where she might be? The mom never says this in her interview.

My daughter used to go to my mom's house Mon - Thurs after school because I worked until 5. On Fridays, I got out at 4 and she rode the bus home and would get dropped off right at our house at 4:10, so I would be home 5 minutes after her. This was in the 90s, so pre-cell phone.

One day, when I got home, there were no footprints in the snow leading to the house. Maybe the wind blew the snow in? I go in, and call her name. Nothing. I walked around outside, looked in the garage, nothing. Called my mom asking if she picked her up or did she walk to my mom's house (a block from school). Nope. I called school. Closed. I called my husband at work. He hadn't heard from her. I called one of her friends to see if she saw her. She said she saw her at school but didnt see if she went out with bussers or walkers.

In the meantime, my mother was driving up by the school to look for her, I said I'd stay home to see if she showed up and my husband left work to look as well.

My mom called me from a l
pay phone and didnt find her. I called the school bus company and had to leave a message. The phone rang, and it was the bus company. The driver wasn't used to stopping at our house and drove by. She was on the bus! They had to finish the route and drop her off on the way back to the bus garage. We were outside the city. I was frantic and nauseated the whole time!!!

I'm telling this story to compare to the mom's version and it just doesn't seem like the most basic due diligence. I was using a freaking phone book and a landline!

Also, did the mom just go to work that day like a normal day? She never says, I went to work, blah blah, blah...
Good example! And great parenting! My 12 year old left her phone at school once and gets home on public transport and I told work I had to go, left and went looking for her. Even though she was fine! That was probably helicopter parenting actually on my end, lol.
I wonder if she was sleeping and didn’t want to say. As she worked the evening before…
 
Maybe it went something like this...
"Honey, you know they always investigate the boyfriend. The cops are going to waste a bunch of time giving me the third degree when they should be out searching for Maddie. If we say that we both saw her that morning, then maybe they won't focus on me and instead use their resources to find her."

Just a thought.
But with all the other things… the factory reset, the delayed calling of 911, it seems less likely. I have a daughter the same age. If she didn’t have her phone and didn’t show up at car rider line I would be progressively worried… within minutes I would have been racing around the school and upon learning that she skipped, I would be calling immediately!!
 
I’m confused as to why JS said nothing in her phone seemed concerning but police seemed to zero in on the text that MS allegedly wrote about wanting to live in the woods?

As a mother, I would be immediately concerned.

I would like to know if JS made calls to SS after realizing MS wasn’t at school. Did she call and say “hey, Madeline wasn’t at school…did she text or call you to let you know she wasn’t going to be waiting for me? That she went anywhere else?”

Did she text SS saying “I can’t find Madeline, she wasn’t at pick up”?

IMO if mom called 911 without texting/calling SS or calling grandma, family, friends, etc…that’s a red flag. JMHO.
Well, not only that, but I believe it was in the description of the arrest warrant of the evidence about being at the school after-school, it stated that both parents were there looking for her. But in her interviews on tv, I didn't hear about SS being there searching at all. IMO.
Edited for clarity.
 
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