True Crime with Rachel Shannon
SOLVED: The Disturbing Case of Katie Fusco and Steven Pladl
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.
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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.
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.
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