Put In the Way of Danger… So Her Mom Could Smoke Cigarettes? – The Story of Elaina Steinfurth

Put In the Way of Danger… So Her Mom Could Smoke Cigarettes? – The Story of Elaina Steinfurth

She went in the house, was in the house with Steven for 20 or 25 minutes. He says he could hear Angela crying, then everything got quiet. Two minutes later, she came running out the front door saying the baby was missing.

The story I have for you today is one about a toddler whose death was covered up for months and months by her mother and her mother’s boyfriend, and in the end, her body was found in an unlikely place, but a place that likely should have already been searched. This is the story of Elaina Steinfurth.

Elaina Jane Steinfurth was born in Toledo, Ohio, on December 20, 2011, to her father, Terry Steinfurth, also known as TJ, and her mother, Angela Steinfurth. Elaina had one older sister named Kylie, who she loved to chase around the house. Elaina was a very loving baby who was also cuddly, and she was a bit of a daddy’s girl. One of Elaina’s favorite things was to be pushed on the swing. She was playful, full of energy, and determined. Due to being born with problems with her feet, doctors said that it would take Elaina longer than usual to walk, but within months of physical therapy, she was walking by her first birthday.

Elaina’s parents, Terry and Angela, had been together for eight years before they separated in November of 2012, though they had not yet filed for divorce, so they had an informal custody agreement for Elaina and her 4-year-old sister. In the last week of May 2013, Angela sent the girls to live with their father, Terry. This was because she said she was getting kicked out of her boyfriend’s house and she had nowhere to go with the girls. Prior to Elaina and Kylie going to live with their father, Angela had actually been keeping his two daughters from him for about three weeks now. Terry and Angela had an agreement that when she took their daughters, it was only going to be for a visitation, and she was not allowed to bring them to her ex-boyfriend’s house.

Now, Terry didn’t want her going there not because he was just jealous, but because previously Angela had told him that her boyfriend, Stephen King (no relation to the author), had been inappropriate with the girls. Apparently, one time he had snatched Elaina’s older sister by the arm, dragged her around, yanked her, and smacked her in the mouth, and Angela had told Terry about all of this; that’s how he had found out.

So, on June 1, 2013, Terry let Angela take their two daughters for an overnight visit, and he would be picking them up the following day. But instead of staying at her stepfather Richard Shiva’s house like she had promised Terry that she would, she went instead to Steven’s mother’s house with her daughters, where she said she would not go with the girls. Steven’s mother was named Julie King, and she lived on Federal Street in East Toledo, Ohio.

Now, Angela and Steven had broken up about a week prior, but Angela had called his mother, Julie, on June 1st and told her that she had nowhere to go with her two daughters that night, so Julie, believing her, let her stay. But the thing was, she could have stayed at her father’s house with the two girls; she just didn’t want to because she was not allowed to smoke her cigarettes while she was there. Yes, that’s why—because she couldn’t smoke her cigarettes, she put her daughters in a dangerous situation.

On the following day, June 2nd, Terry went over to Angela’s father’s house expecting to pick up his two girls, but he was told that they were not there and that she had actually brought them over to Steven’s mother’s house. Terry was enraged, and he got back in his car and drove the few miles over to Julie King’s house. When Terry knocked on the front door, Angela answered, and while she would let their older daughter Kylie go with him, she refused to let Elaina go with him, telling him that she was sleeping and she didn’t want to wake her.

Terry persisted, but Angela kept refusing. Aggravated that his soon-to-be ex-wife was giving him such a hard time, Terry went to get his father, Terry Senior, to act as a go-between, and they would return together to Julie’s house about a half hour later. Upon speaking with Terry Senior, Angela finally gave in, and she went into the house to get Elaina. She was gone for about 20 to 25 minutes when she suddenly came running back outside yelling, “They got my baby! They took my baby!”

Angela would tell Terry and his father that her ex-boyfriend Steven and his mother Julie had gone out the back door to look for Elaina. When they heard this, they told her that they needed to call 911 as well and they also needed to go look for her, but Angela was now acting as if nothing was wrong, and she sat down on the porch and would shed no tears for her daughter who was missing. So Terry would call the police, and almost immediately their search for Elaina began.

When authorities arrived at Julie’s home, they searched it up and down looking for any clues as to where Elaina went, but they would find nothing. Terry and his family and friends began to canvas the neighborhood, but they also couldn’t find her anywhere. Door-to-door searches were also being done. Several agencies joined the search for the missing 18-month-old. Police were pulling out all the stops to find little Elaina, using resources from their department, the fire department, and the FBI.

Now, when Steven and his mother had gone out the back door, he had been gone for about a half an hour. That was a half hour of time that was unaccounted for, though his mother said that he was out the entire time searching for Elena. “Steven and I, both of us went running out the back door,” Julie says. She was with Steven that entire time, and they were worried Elena may have wandered into the backyard: “And I was just afraid by some chance that maybe she had gotten out the back door into the pool.”

That’s when he was said to have left for about 30 minutes. Julie says that’s also true, but also incomplete: “I had told Steven to go down the alley to look to see if maybe she had gotten out the gate.” That is the missing time that many have questioned, but she says Steven was with his cousin and another neighborhood boy searching for Elaina. He didn’t go running out the back door by himself; he didn’t go running out the back door with a baby. “It was him and I looking in the pool and the garage.”

Meanwhile, Terry and his father had a feeling that Angela and Steven knew exactly what had happened to Elaina. They felt the couple had been acting strange, and they felt that they knew where Elaina was.

“Tell me your emotions from tonight.” “I don’t know how to explain them because they’re… they’re crazy. I have been shaken for the last three days, and I just want my baby home. She has problems, and the only way they’re going to get handled is if me and her father can do it for her.” “You told me before a little bit about… you know, certainly there’s a lot of community members that came out tonight. What are your feelings on your support from the community?” “Well, if I had their support, I wouldn’t feel the way I do, but not when people are pointing fingers at me when they don’t even know what’s going on.” “Some of the people that, you know, ones that are putting up flyers for you, the ones that you really feel are helping you, how what does that do for you?” “That makes me really happy because I need all the support that I can get to bring her home, anything to keep me comfortable and from losing my mind.”

Julie King would tell a few people, including her nephew, that Elaina, Angela, and Kylie had come to her house on June 1st and spent the night. She said that she had not physically seen either one of the children on the 1st or the 2nd. She did, however, hear Elaina cry at one point on June 2nd. Later, however, Julie would speak with media and she told them that she had changed Elaina’s diaper while she was there. Now, had that been true, she would have seen any physical harm done to Elaina at the time, but she was never formally questioned by police.

But whether or not Julie actually did see the girls, they were indeed there on June 1st and June 2nd, as there had been video surveillance footage that police found that showed Angela and Elena sitting on Julie’s front porch on the day before Elaina disappeared.

“So you… you know, this, I was saying the last recorded sighting of the baby was the video camera, the surveillance thing that we got a hold of, right?” “Someone, right.” “But you say you saw her after that? That was like 6:00 p.m. Saturday?” “Saturday, right.” “So you said you’ve seen the baby since then?” “Yes, we saw her Saturday evening, about 9:15, 9:30, I think it was. My friend and I, and um, she had come in… Kylie had come running in first and come right next to my rocking chair, and she had always called me Aunt Nana and said, ‘Aunt Nana, I told you I’d be back, you know, happy to be back.’ And um, Angela had laid the baby down to show us what she said was a diaper… what we told her was a diaper rash. She was thinking it was something different. And um, I played with the kids for a few minutes, and then I went to bed. I went up to bed. I always went up to bed early, though. But at that time, there was no visible injuries or anything on the baby, you know, not that I noticed, not that I noticed.” “Was she awake and acting…?” “Yeah, she seemed… yeah, she seemed like she was awake and acting her normal self. I mean, she was always kind of a depressed little girl, always sad. She always just seemed sad.”

While Elaina’s mother, Angela, was telling the public that she believed her daughter had been kidnapped, Steven was refusing to make any comments to the media. So, on the day that Elaina had been reported as missing, Steven and Angela had been interviewed by police separately. During Steven’s interview with police, he told them that he had ended his relationship with Angela about a week prior because he did not like her parenting skills. He also did not like how she disciplined her daughters, and he said sometimes she would hit Elaina on the head.

Both Angela and Steven said in those first interviews that Steven had been the one to put the children to bed on the night of June 1st, and they both also agreed that Steven had been the only one to go into the bedroom to check on Elaina the next day when she was sleeping.

On June 3rd, police interviewed Elaina’s older sister Kylie, and she told them that Steven was not nice to her or her sister. She also told investigators that they should take Steven to jail because he was mean to her father and mother as well. Kylie also said that Steven had punched her in the leg, but he had not hurt anyone else that she had seen. Now, this must have been extremely difficult for the little girl because she was having a hard time as it was going through her sister’s disappearance. In fact, every time her father Terry would leave the house, she would ask him if he was going to get her sister Elaina.

As Elaina’s disappearance stretched on for days with no sign of the little girl, on June 6th, crews expanded their search to the nearby Maumee River. The reason they were looking here was because Angela and Steven had told police that during their own search for Elena, they had found two used diapers along the riverbank, and they were the same type that Elaina wore. Now, this area where they claimed the diapers had been found had already been searched, but nothing had been found at the time. Police were sure that the diapers had not been in that area when they had previously searched it. Investigators then began to believe that Angela and Steven were just trying to throw them off track and they had something to do with Elaina’s disappearance.

Meanwhile, Terry and the rest of his family held out hope that Elaina was still out there alive, and they held prayer vigils twice a week for the little girl. The search for clues into Elaina Steinfurth’s disappearance continued below the high-level bridge. Thursday, investigators combed through the wooded area along the river while dive crews searched the water. Meanwhile, in the East Toledo neighborhood where the toddler vanished, her family had a simple message: “You know, I… I just wish that you know that somebody, whoever has her, would bring her home safely to us, just… return her.”

I asked Elaina’s grandmother how the family gets the strength to face another day. “Just all standing together in prayer, and this family and community is praying that this little girl will be returned safe. And if you don’t want to give your name or anything like that, just drop her off to a church or somewhere and… and just put an anonymous call, you know? Just bring her home, just bring her back to us.”

Not long into the investigation, detectives began to focus in on Angela after they heard that she had told a few people that Terry was never getting the kid, referring to Elaina. Police also heard from multiple sources that Angela had been telling people that Elaina had a black eye, a bump on her head, and blood around her nostril when she had woken up on the morning that she had disappeared. And one of the neighbors spoke to the local newspaper and said that they had witnessed Angela’s reaction when she had first found out that her daughter was missing: she had gone from crying to smiling in the blink of an eye.

Some of these witnesses also said that they had seen Angela scream at her 18-month-old in the past, and she had also called Elaina’s older sister Kylie the B-word and then slapped her across the face. She was also known to leave baby Elaina alone for hours at a time.

When Angela spoke with the Toledo police, she confirmed that while Elaina did have a black eye, a bump on her head, and a bloody nose, she had no idea how any of them had happened. She also said that none of the injuries had been there on the night of June 1st, but when she had woken up the next morning, they were all there. So Angela was placed under arrest at that time for child endangerment, as she had clearly known about Elaina’s injuries but had not sought help. The charge was later dropped on June 24th; however, the grand jury would indict her on charges of obstruction of justice, and she would plead not guilty.

A few days after her arrest, Angela would agree to give police a statement, and this is the first time that she would finally admit her daughter was dead. So, although she initially had said that she had only heard Elaina crying and a thud when Steven had gone to put her to bed, she was now recanting her statement and saying that she was in the bedroom and she had seen Steven throw Elaina.

Angela told police that she believed Steven was responsible for Elaina’s injuries, though at the time he told her that Kylie had accidentally hit her younger sister while sleeping and that’s what had caused the black eye and the bloody nose. Angela also claimed that she was afraid of Steven and that’s why she did nothing at the time. The next morning, Angela said that Elaina was dead, and Steven said that he would take care of her. He had then wrapped the little girl up in a blanket and taken her to the Maumee River.

Now, an inmate at the Lucas County Jail who was serving time alongside Angela went to police a few days later and told them that while Angela had told her pretty much the same story, there were a few discrepancies. Angela had said that Steven was high on Suboxone on the night of June 1st, and she had actually been the one who threw her daughter’s body into the river.

A neighbor who lived across the street from Julie King also came out and said that on the night before Elaina had disappeared, he had seen Angela and Steven sneaking out of the house shortly after midnight. This neighbor also said that usually he would hear the King’s screen door opening and closing, but this time he heard nothing after they had left the house. The couple had taken off in a van, and then they had returned back to the house about 15 to 20 minutes later. The van that this neighbor was talking about would later be confiscated by police and brought in to be searched, but nothing would be found.

And Angela’s stepfather also gave some other information publicly about this van: “You were talking about a red van, what’s that all about?” “That… that is Steven, the boyfriend’s van. The day that the baby come up missing and they couldn’t… I couldn’t… I looked for that red van, the police looked for it, they couldn’t find it. 2:30 in the morning the next day, the red van shows up in the alley with metal license plates on it, expired. The next morning they… plates… off of it with an expired 30-day tag on it. Now when they towed it, this got metal plates when TJ’s dad, when the baby’s dad’s grandpa came over to keep the peace, they ran out the back door, got in that van, and went somewhere. They dumped her in the river or something. She was sick to where, you know, they were too afraid to take her to the hospital or something, I don’t know. The whole family, they should have kept the mother, the dad, and the boyfriend, and my daughter down here until they… somebody told… somebody said something. That’s what they should have done.” “What message do you have for the boyfriend right now?” “Turn your ass in before I get you, ’cause I’m coming for you today.”

Then, about a month after Elaina had gone missing, a fisherman pulled a lock of hair out of the Maumee River after it had gotten entangled on his line. Police began running tests on it, but unfortunately, after a couple of weeks had gone by, it was determined that the hair did not have follicles, which made it impossible to complete a DNA test on it in order to link it to Elaina.

At this point, Steven King was getting harassed daily and getting many death threats. Everyone was convinced he had something to do with Elaina’s disappearance as well. Elaina’s family, who was still hopeful that she would be found alive, began appearing on news programs and television shows trying to get the word out there about their missing, beloved little girl.

A cousin of Steven’s went on the Nancy Grace show to speak on Steven’s behalf. His cousin, Christy Edmonds, would say that June 2nd had started off like any other day. Elaina was playing with her toys, and when she had gotten tired, both Angela and Steven had laid her down for a nap. Steven had placed Elaina on the bed, and then Angela had changed her diaper and given her a cup. They had then left and gone to a store. Steven’s cousin said that the couple had actually gone to a convenience store that was in East Toledo, and it was called Universal. There they got cigarettes and then returned back to the home on Federal Street where they were staying.

Later in the day, they would leave the house again and go to the Dollar General, but it was only briefly before they returned. Both times the couple had left, the girls were supposedly in the care of a friend of Steven’s brother. After the couple had returned from the store a second time, Steven told his cousin that Angela had gone to check on Elaina a few times. In between checking on her, she would go outside and watch some older kids who were playing out in the yard while smoking a cigarette.

Steven’s cousin Christy also claimed that Steven had never seen the toddler with a black eye or bloody nose. And while Christy was on the Nancy Grace show, she also said that she had been deeply disturbed by a comment that Angela had made to her: Angela said that she was sad because she just did not have enough time with her daughter. Christy said that this comment had immediately made her suspicious, as she didn’t think this was something that a mother would say when they thought that their child was coming back.

Elaina’s father, Terry Steinfurth, also appeared on the Nancy Grace show, and he spoke about how at times the girls had come back to his home with bruises on their bodies, but Angela had just blamed it on Steven’s young son—of course, always blaming the kids, always. Terry and his living girlfriend had called and reported this to child services, but child services had never sent anybody out for a visit to check on Elaina and her sister.

Finally, on July 22nd, Stephen King was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice. Angela Steinfurth remained jailed on a $100,000 bond, and Stephen King was held on a $250,000 bond.

It wasn’t until September 5th that Steven would finally admit to suffocating Elaina, but his story would still differ from Angela’s. Steven maintained that he did not see any injuries on Elaina’s body on June 1st or the following morning. He then said that on June 2nd, he had laid Elaina down for a nap. After that, he and Angela had gone to the store. Once they returned, he said that Angela had called him into the girls’ bedroom because Elaina was not breathing and she wanted him to try to perform CPR.

Steven said he was not in the room so he did not see what she had done to hurt her daughter. Steven then told them that blood had actually come out of Elaina’s nose as a result of the CPR, and he didn’t know why his ex-girlfriend didn’t call 911, but the reason he didn’t was because he was scared. So, instead of calling emergency services, Steven decided it was a good idea to put his hand over Elaina’s nose and mouth, and he suffocated her.

Steven said that Angela had then blamed him for the entire incident and forced him to get rid of Elaina’s body. So Steven had put her body into a garbage bag and then into a box. He had then placed it in the upper storage area of the garage of his mother’s home.

Shortly after Steven had confessed this, police would find a box that was covered up with a tarp containing the remains of Elaina, which was located in a small loft in the rafters of the garage. It was located near the far corner of the garage under quite a bit of other boxes, trash, and things of that nature.

When Angela spoke with Toledo police, she confirmed that Elaina did have a black eye, a bump on her head, and a bloody nose; however, she had no idea how any of them happened. Likely story! How do you not know how any of that stuff happened? Even if you were sleeping, you would have heard your daughter screaming from the pain of those injuries.

In a press conference, police confirmed that they had located and recovered immature skeletal remains that they believed to be Elaina’s. DNA tests would later confirm that it was indeed Elaina’s body, and her death was then ruled a homicide.

Now, the house on Federal Street had previously been searched by police four times, and the garage twice; however, the police claimed it was too dangerous to send one of their cadaver dogs inside, though a cadaver dog from a volunteer group had gone into the garage previously and picked up a scent, but that was never followed up on. There had also been video taken on the day after Elaina had disappeared, and it clearly showed that the side door to the garage had been opened, indicating that somebody had gone inside.

The chief of police said, “We’re not even going to get into how many times we checked there.” But Angela’s stepfather insisted that the box had not been there on the day after Elaina had disappeared, because he had actually gone into the garage with police, and he said he did not see it. And officials said that while the garage had been searched on June 2nd, at the time they were focused on a missing child, so they did not thoroughly search the rafters.

The coroner found that Elaina had suffered severe acute fractures to the joint areas of her arms and legs. Those types of injuries are consistent with non-accidental trauma, and since it had taken so long to find her little body, there was no soft tissue or organs left to examine during the autopsy.

So Angela and Steven were indicted on further charges on December 2nd, 2013. Angela was indicted for murder, and Steven was indicted for aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence.

The very next day, on December 3rd, Angela would enter into an Alford plea, basically saying that she was not guilty, but she was taking a guilty plea because it was a better deal for her. There was evidence to support that Angela had gotten fed up with Elaina’s crying on the night of June 1st, and she had grabbed her by one of her limbs and thrown her across the room. At that point, she had hit the wall, bed, and floor. It was also believed that Steven had witnessed all of this, and then the couple, after it had happened, went and had sex. Nice!

But Angela’s attorney was claiming that the next morning she was actually alarmed by her daughter’s injuries; however, she was too afraid to call the police because she didn’t want her daughter to be taken from her. So Angela and Steven both panicked at the extent of the toddler’s injuries, and not wanting to bring her to the hospital to, you know, save her life, Steven decided instead it was a better idea to cover both her nose and mouth with his hand and suffocate her. He then hid her body up in the garage like it was just junk.

The judge spoke at Steven’s sentencing hearing and she told him that she didn’t think he should ever be released from prison and that he was a coward. She then said: “You had the opportunity to seek medical treatment intervention that possibly could have saved that little baby girl’s life, and you put your own well-being first, your own fears of what would happen to you, and with cold calculation smothered that little girl. You took the last breath from her, and then what did you do? It shows even more about the core of Stephen King: you take the body of that little girl and you dispose of it by putting it in a box and storing it in a garage like she’s a piece of trash. It speaks volumes as to how you value life itself, except for your own.”

Steven was then sentenced to 25 years to life, and Angela was sentenced to 18 years to life.

Elaina’s father, Terry, read a statement in the courtroom, his voice breaking many times. He called the actions of his ex-wife and Steven selfish and senseless. He said: “The question that leaves me completely baffled is how anyone can hurt an innocent 18-month-old baby girl in any way. Yet I know I will never get the answer to that question, because as a loving father, I can never comprehend any answer or excuse given. There is no justification for harming an innocent child.”

On December 4th, 2013, just hours after hearing the sentences that were handed down to Angela and Steven, Elaina’s family held a vigil to remember the toddler. About 100 people gathered at the corner of Federal and Leonard Street in East Toledo, a location that served as a central meeting place during the search for the little girl. Clothing and signs displayed the messages “Bring Elena Home” and “Justice for Elena.”

“Elena got justice!” was the chant that echoed through East Toledo as family members led the crowd on a march.

Following the prayer vigil, a memorial service for Elaina had been held back on September 27th, 2013, at the Eggleston Meinert & Pavley Funeral Home in Oregon, Ohio, to pay their respects. Visitors dressed in baby Elaina’s favorite color, pink; some even wore t-shirts with her face on them and left flowers. Her funeral was then held the next day, and she was buried at the Lake Township Cemetery in Millbury. Hundreds gathered to say goodbye to Elaina, and upon arriving at her grave site, Terry released a white dove in honor of his little girl. Elaina’s mother asked to attend her daughter’s funeral, but she was refused.

Well, thank you for listening to all of Elaina’s story today. I’m really torn on whether or not it was Angela or Steven who originally hurt Elaina. It sounds like Angela was not the best mom, and that was said by several people, but no matter who killed her, the other person helped to cover it up for much too long until the poor little girl was just bones, and now no one will know exactly what happened to her back in June of 2013.