True Crime with Rachel Shannon
SOLVED: The Disturbing Case of Katie Fusco and Steven Pladl
Sat, 12 Apr 2025
In this video, I break down the chilling and deeply disturbing case of Katie Fusco and Steven Pladl — a true story that shocked the world. What began as a long-lost father-daughter reunion spiraled into something dark and tragic. From the psychological manipulation to the heartbreaking ending, this case is as haunting as it is unforgettable.
Chapter 1: What is the case of Katie Fusco and Steven Pladl about?
Small prices, great fun. and uncomfortable and I'm actually really surprised that I haven't heard more about this case until someone went to my email and suggested that I cover it.
I didn't want to cover this case at first and I kind of went back and forth with whether I wanted to talk about this case but I think this is a very interesting case despite how disturbing it is so I did decide to go ahead and cover it here on my channel. It's honestly such a wild ride so let's just jump right in.
Now, this case starts in 1995 when a 20-year-old man named Steve Plato went online and met a 15-year-old teenager named Alyssa on the internet. At the time, Stephen was living in New York City while Alyssa was from San Antonio, Texas. The two chatted online for a while, sending messages back and forth.
They wrote each other love letters and even visited each other in person a couple of times before Stephen actually convinced Alyssa to leave her life in Texas to go move in with him in New York. So, she did that and it wasn't long before Alyssa was 16 years old and she found herself pregnant. By January of 1998, she went on to give birth to her daughter who she named Denise.
At this point, Alyssa was 17 years old. She had a daughter who she absolutely loved and adored. but she was away from her family and things just weren't easy for her. Alyssa tried her best to try and make the best life possible for her daughter, but Stephen made that absolutely impossible. He was incredibly abusive towards both Denise and Alyssa.
He would pinch Denise until her skin was just purple and black and blue. When she would cry, there were times that Stephen would just lock her in a cooler so that he could go away and not hear her. Sometimes he would even cover her mouth while she was crying to the point of almost suffocating her. And Alyssa did try to help her daughter, but whenever she did, Stephen just would not let her.
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Chapter 2: What led to Alyssa's decision to put Denise up for adoption?
He physically stopped her from helping her daughter. It was very clear that Alyssa was very scared of him and she didn't want to be in this situation, but Stephen would threaten her and tell her that if she ever tried to leave him, he would take his own life. He had also been very cruel to animals right in front of Alyssa, so she knew that he was very capable of being violent.
Also, throughout their entire time together, Stephen wouldn't get a job and he left Alyssa with the sole responsibility of raising their daughter, having a job, and making money, and taking care of him. even though he was an adult and she was still technically a child. It got to the point where Alyssa knew that she needed to remove her daughter from the situation.
Chapter 3: How did Katie Fusco's upbringing shape her life?
She thought that if she didn't act soon, that Stephen was going to kill Denise. So she did what she thought was best for her and she put up eight-month-old Denise for adoption. She just wanted to give Denise the best life that she possibly could and she thought that this was the best decision for her. Denise ended up being adopted by Tony and Kelly Fusco.
They took her home to Dover in New York, which was around 80 miles north of New York City, and raised her alongside their biological son, Carrie, as well as other biological siblings. They renamed Denise to Katie Fusco, and by all accounts, they gave her a great life. They lived in a small trailer park community that was described as a sleepy town with a lot of good people and families.
The community did have their problems, but overall it seemed like a pretty decent environment for her to grow up. Neighbors around the community also commented and said that the Fusco family just seemed like your average family. Katie was described by her friends and family as a reserved, shy, yet happy girl. She absolutely loved animals and she was passionate about them.
She was a vegetarian and was a foodie who was always eating. She went to Dover High School and was on the cheerleading team. She was also known by her peers for her artistic ability, specifically with drawing comic strips. Katie absolutely loved art and had planned to attend college and eventually pursue a career in digital advertising. She once wrote in a blog post,
A pen and something to draw on became a safe place for me. Ink became my weapon against rules and regulations. There wouldn't be a corner in a classroom or a park that I didn't have a little secret character living on it. Ask an artist why creating is important to them and they won't ever stop giving out reasons. To be short, for me, a life without art is no life at all."
Now, according to the Fuscos, Katie did know that she was adopted growing up. She never seemed bothered by the fact that she was adopted, but of course, she was always curious as to who her biological parents were. Now, Alyssa and Steven, Katie's biological parents, did end up staying together despite the stress and the problems that they had.
I don't know if things in the relationship ever really got better at any certain point, But as we will kind of see throughout this case, it does seem like Stephen just has a way of intimidating women and making them stay. Either way, in 2007, Stephen and Alyssa had their second daughter.
This time, Alyssa said that they were much more grown up and they were in a stage in their lives where they were much more ready and prepared for a child. Then in 2012, They gave birth to their third daughter and of course these two other daughters they did end up keeping. So by the time Katie was 18 in 2016, she set out to social media to find her biological parents.
She did end up finding them and so she sent them a message on Facebook and they were actually really happy to hear from her and they welcomed her with open arms. She was actually supposed to attend college in August of that year,
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Chapter 4: What happened when Katie sought out her biological parents?
She immediately saw what was going on and she immediately wanted to put a stop to it. After the second night that Stephen went in to sleep in Alyssa's bedroom, Alyssa confronted him.
He asked him, of course, what he was doing and why he was sleeping in there and said that it's just not appropriate, but this turned into a heated argument and Stephen told Alyssa to mind her own business and then he just stormed out of the house taking Katie with him. By November of that year, Alyssa had just had enough of him and she finally moved out of the house.
They were, I think, legally separated. I'm not sure if it was legally separated or if they were just saying that they were separated, but they weren't divorced yet at this point. So Alyssa shared equal custody with Steven of their two children, but she did take the two children with her to live with her in her new house.
However, Katie decided to stay back and she continued living with her biological father. And this is when the case gets very, very disturbing. Around six months after moving out of the home with Stephen, Alyssa learned of the very disturbing relationship that Katie and Stephen had.
One night, Alyssa was reading her 11-year-old daughter's journal and she happened upon a page where she wrote that Stephen had told her to stop calling Katie her sister and to start calling her her stepmom. She had also drawn a picture of a girl who was supposedly Katie with a big pregnant belly.
I do have a picture of this journal entry but it's honestly difficult to read so I will do my best to read a couple of sections. So it says, but now she is pregnant and gained weight and my dad calls her baby also his baby. Did he make her pregnant? My dad even says she's my stepmom. WTF? He doesn't even want me to call her sister, but Katie is my sister. She probably is his wife now.
But in nature, she's only my sister. Does she see me as a daughter or a sister? Alyssa was absolutely frantic and hysterical after reading this, so she immediately called Stephen and asked him if Katie was pregnant with his child and he said yes, she is. He was totally casual about the entire thing and said that the two were in love and that he thought that she knew about it.
Katie and Stephen had started their sexual relationship as soon as Alyssa had moved out and the two had plans to get married as soon as him and Alyssa had divorced. Katie's sisters had also said that when they would sleep over at Stephen's house, that they did see Alyssa and him sleeping in the same bed.
And they said that Stephen told them not to tell any of their friends about Katie and his relationship, saying that their friends would make fun of them if any of them found out. Of course, Alyssa tried processing all of this, but holy cow, I cannot imagine what was going through her head when she was finding all of this out.
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Chapter 5: What changes occurred in Steven after Katie moved in?
They lived in a home in a cul-de-sac in a suburban area and things seemed to be going great. But by January of 2018, police showed up on their front door and arrested the both of them for incest, adultery, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. After appearing in front of the judge, the two were released on bail.
Stephen's lawyer claimed that there were absolutely no allegations of Stephen pressuring Katie into this relationship. He said, quote, This is a case of an 18-year-old girl who shows up at the doorstep of a 40-year-old man who's going through difficult times with his wife. They have a bond because they're biologically related, but they never knew each other before they had a sexual relationship.
He was head over heels in love with her, so much so that that outweighed the issue of them being biologically related. But then, after the two were released, Katie went home to live with her biological parents in New York. They were ordered to have absolutely no contact with each other, and little Bennett was handed over to Stephen's mother.
At this point, Stephen was starting to show his unstable, unaggressive side more and more. And Katie started to want out of the relationship. So in April of 2018, Katie got into contact with Stephen despite their no contact order. She wanted to talk to him and break it off with him for good. And this is what set off the catalyst of the tragic events that would happen next.
On April 11th, Stephen went to his mother's house to pick up Bennett and brought him back to his own home. As we would later find out in a frantic 911 call placed by Stephen's mother, once he brought seven-month-old Bennett home, he took his life, most likely by suffocating him. We don't know the exact cause of death as far as I've seen.
I don't think they ever released it, but we would later find out that he had no visible signs of trauma on him when they did the autopsy, so it is believed that he most likely was suffocated. After this, on April 12th, he left his home and drove around 500 miles north to Wingdale, New York, where Katie lived.
He got a minivan and went to the local liquor store, where he sat and waited and watched Katie and Tony leave their home. At this point, Katie and her dad were on their way to Katie's cleaning job at her adoptive grandmother's house. As Katie and Tony drove away from their home, Stephen followed them from Wingdale to New Milford until they got to a stop sign at the intersection of Routes 7 and 55.
Just minutes later, witnesses called police reported seeing someone open fire on two people. Stephen Playdell had pulled up next to their truck and fired several rounds from his rifle, which was similar to an AR-15, into the passenger side of the truck. Both Katie and Tony had suffered multiple gunshot wounds to their upper torso and heads.
After he shot the two at around 8 45 a.m., he called his mother and reported that he had killed Katie, Tony, and their seven-month-old baby. Bennett. So of course, after receiving this call, Stephen's mother called 911. In the call, she said, quote, my son just called me and told me that he killed his baby.
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Chapter 6: How did Alyssa discover the disturbing relationship between Katie and Steven?
Okay, he said it was in the... What's his last name? Same as mine. When did this happen? He said he left last night. He called me, I forget, maybe about 7 last night and said he was on his way to New York. He was going to bring to his... wife and given to her. And then he'd be back. And he called me this morning. I just got off the phone just a couple of minutes ago.
And he told me to call the police that I shouldn't go over there. Okay, so your son is not there? No, the house is empty. Oh, he said he put a key under the front mat. Because he had to get into the house under the front mat. Did he say how he did it or what he did? No, and I didn't ask him. I didn't ask him. I didn't want to know. Oh, my God. Okay. Hold on just a second, okay? Oh, my God.
When police arrived, both Katie and Tony were dead and their truck was absolutely covered in bullet holes. When police went to Stephen's home, police did find baby Bennett's body in Stephen's closet and he too was unfortunately dead. Then they started their manhunt to find Stephen, but this did not last long as they found him pretty quickly.
at 9 15 a.m that same day police in dover found stephen's minivan he was inside in the driver's seat slumped over and he too was dead he had shot himself inside of that car taking his own life after taking the life of both his son and his daughter and the man who adopted her so That is pretty much where the case ends.
Alyssa has come out and talked a lot about this case and obviously this entire thing was incredibly traumatic for her and her children. She had said that throughout her entire time knowing Steven, he was physically and verbally abusive, but he was never sexually abusive towards any of their children. So, she never expected him to be involved in any sort of relationship with his child.
However, we do know that when Steven was 20 years old, he groomed a 15-year-old girl into having a relationship with him and giving up her whole life and moving in with him in New York, over a thousand miles away from her family. She had also said that he had always shown an interest in collecting guns.
She said that he had a closet full of guns and would often threaten her with violence, as we know. She said that after leaving him, she would pull up to an intersection and if someone had slowed down next to her or stopped next to her, she was always paranoid that it was him showing up to harm her.
So, when Steven was originally arrested for incest, they did seize his guns, but Alyssa said that she thought that it was possible that maybe Steven used her information to buy himself a gun online, or maybe he built one himself, since according to her, He is a very talented carpenter. But either way, Alyssa believes that he felt that all he had left in his life was Katie and Bennett.
She had said that he could always hold on to the hope that, you know, one day Katie and him would be back together and they would have Bennett and they would be a family. But once Katie made it very clear that that wasn't going to happen, he snapped and decided that nothing was worth it anymore. If he couldn't have them, then no one could. He couldn't live without her.
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Chapter 7: What were the shocking revelations about Steven and Katie's relationship?
and she didn't want her living without him. It's just so disturbing and unfortunate that it all happened this way and how this entire thing played out. So this does bring up the last bit that I want to talk about in this video. Obviously, this was a very disturbing case and pretty much everybody watching this would be disgusted at the thought of all of this.
But one idea that did get brought up with this case was the idea of genetic sexual attraction. It's basically an attraction that develops between blood relatives who meet for the first time as adults. This is a rare thing, but there have been several cases of relatives wanting to be together after reconnecting as adults.
It's really bizarre and it makes me question is this something that's common between people who met and don't know their relatives or you know is it more common with people who know their relatives and just meet up after a while because I guess if you don't know your relatives it's understandable but I obviously think that if you know your relatives it makes it a lot worse especially for Steven seeing his daughter being born and
wanting a relationship with her. It's just so disturbing. I do personally believe that Stephen did a lot to pressure Katie into this. It may not have been him overtly pressuring her, but it was definitely him covertly pressuring her. He changed his entire image to fit what he knew Katie would like, and he inserted himself into her life in a very inappropriate way.
I know that Katie was a legal adult and obviously she took part in this relationship too, but I have a lot more sympathy for her. I can't even imagine how confused she must have felt through all of this, especially meeting this man who was supposedly her father who was all of a sudden just acting this way towards her. It must have been so confusing to her and
I think she sort of fell into this relationship and thought that she was in love with him, but as soon as she was separated from him and living back with her parents, realized that this was wrong and realized that she maybe was not in love with him and that's why she wanted to break it off with him. And that is ultimately what cost her and her son's life.
This is just such an unfortunate case and it was definitely preventable and it's just really sad and unfortunate how all of this played out. But that is where I'm going to end today's video. I'm really looking forward to hearing all of your guys' thoughts in the comments. Do you think that Katie was pressured into this? Or do you think that she took part in this willingly?
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