(NewsNation) — The man who killed 13-year-old Madeline Soto will never again be free after a surprise plea deal was made to avoid the death penalty on Monday.
Stephan Sterns, the ex-boyfriend of Soto’s mother, will not have the possibility of parole. Sterns was set to go on trial this week for the nearly two dozen sexual battery charges against him.
As a part of the deal, Sterns pleaded guilty to all 20 counts of sex crimes and no contest to the first-degree murder charge.
Police said Sterns molested Soto for years before strangling her and dumping her body on the side of a country road not far from the family’s home in central Florida, just days after her 13th birthday.
Surveillance video showed Sterns driving Soto’s body around in his car before moving her to the trunk. Investigators said inappropriate and illegal pictures were found on Sterns’ cellphone and Google Drive despite his efforts to factory-reset the phone the day Soto went missing.
Sterns gave a brief statement after pleading guilty, “apologizing for all the pain” he caused.
“Because of the actions of this depraved man, I will never meet the woman she was becoming, and I can’t grasp it,” Tyler Wallace, Soto’s father, said in court. “It doesn’t heal with time,” he said.