Adopted Daughter Reunites with Biological Father; Case Ends in Murder | Steven Pladl Update

Happy Saturday. Here I was minding my own business, right? And I get an email saying that Love and Murder is trending. And I’m like trending, I’m trending on Apple podcasts. And ah, I opened the email and it says I’m trending for the Steven Pladl case. And I was like, what’s going on with this case? Because that finished a while ago. So I had to sit down, do some research, find out what the update was, find out what was going on with this case and I decided to bring it to my lambs. I know it’s Saturday, I know you’re not expecting an episode to come out, but you know me. So like I said yesterday, if you’re not subscribed to Love and Murder, go ahead and subscribe on whatever platform you’re on so you don’t miss whenever I just crazily put out episodes. You can subscribe on whatever platform you’re listening on right now, whether it’s Apple, whether it’s Spotify or. The best way is you can go to the Patreon, you can subscribe for free patreon.com/loveandmurder and um, um, once you subscribe to the Patreon for free or using the bonus tiers. So when I put, whenever I put out an episode it actually comes directly to your inbox. Whatever email you signed up with, it’ll come directly to that email address so you definitely won’t miss an episode. Now let’s get into this Saturday case that I wanted to bring you. Now if you remember the Steven Pladl case, then you already know how disturbing that story was from the start. An adopted daughter reconnects with her biological parents at 18, moves in with them and ends up in a relationship with her own father. That relationship led to a pregnancy, a uh, supposed marriage that never should have been allowed. And I say supposed because that’s not a marriage. And eventually an arrest on incest charges. After being released on bond with a no contact order, Katie Pladl ended up in a relationship and went back to live with her adopted parents. And basically that’s where everything ended up turning into a multi state murder case. And if you haven’t heard the full episode, or if you can’t remember the full episode, then uh, go back and listen to my initial episode. That link is in the show notes below. Because this is just a brief, brief update and um, basically me trying to figure out why I was trending for this case. So don’t forget, listen to the initial episode. The link is below in the show notes, because that was a. A roller coaster of the freakiest of craziest cases that I could have ever, never imagined in my life. So after everything, after all of that, Alyssa Pleadel, who is Steven’s former wife, who witnessed the family’s descent into chaos, stayed out of the spotlight. She didn’t attend the funerals and instead sent flowers, saying she wanted to avoid drawing more attention to the situation. She later spoke about what happened, so saying that she was grieving, but also wanted something to come from it, specifically raising awareness about incest and pushing authorities to, quote, err, uh, on the side of caution when children are involved. She also talked about the fear that she’s been living with, saying she constantly worried Steven might come after her and that she would sometimes stop what she was doing just to go home and make sure everything was okay. Basically, she has ptsd or she had ptsd. I don’t know if she still has it. But Alyssa’s two younger daughters, who were the ones to first document the incestuous relationship in a journal, have stayed out of the public spotlight, too, and are currently living a private life alongside their mother. This case has resurfaced again recently because of renewed media attention, including a dramatized version of the story released by Netflix as a Lifetime movie called Husband, Father Killer. The Alyssa Pledell Story. And it was released in April 2026. It was just released, which is why I was trending on Apple podcasts, because this story just came out. I don’t want to say this story, this dramatization of this story, of this case just came out. The film, starring Jackie Cruz as alyssa and Matthew McCall as Steven, dramatizes the house of horrors and the events leading up to the murder suicide. Now, let’s talk about some psychology for a minute. Like, if you know me, you know I love psychology and I’m not a professional or even somebody who went to school for this. So this is simply my opinion and I’m, um, bringing some information based on research. Incest is both a, uh, profound relational betrayal and a public health problem. Survivors commonly show long term ptsd, mood and substance disorders, and complex attachment wounds. While US Laws vary widely by state, penalties can be severe. Now, the psychology behind incest is incestuous abuse typically combines power imbalance, grooming, and betrayal of caregiving roles, which makes it uniquely damaging compared with all other forms of sexual abuse. Survivors often experience trauma bonding, which is an attachment to the abuser, pervasive shame, and distorted beliefs about love and consent. Mechanisms that help explain why some victims remain entangled with perpetrators or later enter abusive relationships. Research and clinical reviews consistently link intrafamilial sexual abuse to post traumatic stress disorder, major depression, substance use disorders and disassociation, and personality and relationship difficulties. Longer durations of abuse, penetration and parental betrayal correlate with worse outcomes. Many studies report high rates of psychiatric diagnosis among incest survivors. Now there are some treatment considerations. Evidence support trauma enforced phased treatment, stabilize safety and effect regulation first, then trauma process medicine like trauma focused CBT or emdr, which I don’t know what those are, but if you want to look it up, you can look it up and later relational or family work if appropriate. Clinicians emphasize careful pacing to avoid retraumatization, screening for disassociation, and addressing attachment wounds and shame as central therapy targets. Now, it’s interesting to note that there is no single federal incest statute. States regulate incest differently. Most states criminalize parent, child and sibling incest and bar incestuous marriage. A few states, notably New Jersey and Rhode island, do not prosecute consensual adult incest in the same way, though marriage between close relatives is still void in many jurisdictions. Penalties and which relationships are covered blood step adopted vary widely. Now there have been high public interim familial cases that have shaped public awareness and policy debates about detention, mandatory reporting and family removal. Some of those cases are the Fritzl case in Austria, the Golder Klan in Canada and the U.S. just has multiple prosecutions. So these two cases that were brought up later on, I’m going to do cases on them. Um, because I’ve never heard of either one of them. Have you all? The Golder clan in Canada, the Fitzel case in Austria, F R I T Z L Many incest cases remain hidden or underreported, complicating prevalence estimates and prevention efforts. So go back and listen to this, the initial episode on this case. Um, and like I said, I was just wondering why all of a sudden I was streaming for this particular case on Apple podcasts and I had to look it up and apparently they came out with a dramatization which we all know there is going to be a lot of misinformation in that movie. Because they just want the drama for Hollywood, you know. So if you haven’t heard the actual facts about that case, you can go back and listen to my episode. The link is in the show notes below. Remember I had an episode that came out and I couldn’t find like the. The information that I found initially was the dramatized version. I don’t Know why? That was the one that came up initially. And I mean, this wasn’t from just one place. I get my information from multiple sources. And after I put out the episode, something told me, look again. And I dug even deeper and I found out there was so much dramatization in there. And I got the information from the people themselves, and there was so much dramatization in there. And I put out an updated episode, um, retracting some of the dramatize. Well, all of the dramatization that I had in the initial episode, because I believe in bringing the truth, not drama. That’s not what this show is about. And then there are some people who came out like, oh, you should have done your research. You don’t know what I did in the background. You have no idea what I did. But, you know, if you want to do a true crime podcast yourself, feel effing free either way. Um, so we know if it’s a movie, more than likely, take it with a grain of salt. Listen to the case, the real case, the true story of what happened. Um, and then if you still want to watch the movie, go ahead and watch the movie. I’m not watching it personally. And speaking of incest cases, uh, there was an article that I wrote, this was like around mid April, about a teenager whose father basically sold her to his brother and told them to become, quote, common law, husband and wife, like, as they say. And you know what? I’m going to do an episode on that. I’m going to put that one into Patreon. Um, so if you want to hear that crazy episode, head on over to the Patreon. Patreon.com/forge/love and murder. I’m going to put that in the Patreon either this weekend or next week. Um, um, because that was a crazy. Just. Yeah, you. You won’t even. And when I put that article out, I got so many, so many comments on this because some people were divided in how it was treated. Um, um, you. When I put this out, I’ll put it out in Patreon. Like I said. Patreon.com/loveandmurder. I want to hear your thoughts on it. Because people were just really divided on this. Not saying that they were divided on whether this person should have been punished or not. They were really divided on the punishment for the girl who was sold to her uncle. So I want to hear your thoughts on it. Head on over to the Patreon. This is going to be at the $5 a month and above tier. When you join that you do get bonus episodes. You also help me bring these cases to the forefront and you help love and murder continue going on. I do appreciate all your donations that you give to me because I know, especially in this economy, this is your hard earned money. And I do appreciate this, helping this show stay listener funded and helping these stories, uh, be told, uh, instead of, you know, the dramatization like they put in movies or, you know, just whatever they do when they want the dramatization. I’m not going to name any platform but, you know, patreon.com/loveandmurder. So I’m gonna put. I thought I had it in my rotation to put out, but guess I didn’t. But I’m definitely going to put this episode out in the Patreon. Patreon.com/loveandmurder Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. I just wanted to, you know, sit, jibber jabber with you, show you what I found and why the podcast was trending on Apple podcasts. Um, I’m very happy that you spent a little bit of your Saturday with me. I know you didn’t expect to hear my voice today and you’re probably like, kai, would you just hurry up and shut up now? So I’m going to wrap this up. Thank you for your support. Thank you for listening. Don’t forget to subscribe over into Patreon and I’ll see you over there as part of the lab fam. And also I will see you in the next episode. Bye.

Past Cases Mentioned in this Episode:

He “Married” His Own Daughter, Days Later It Ended in Murder | Steven Pladl Case
https://murderandlove.com/killing-for-incestual-love-steven-pladl/