Going West: True Crime - Maddie Clifton // 65

Episode Date: April 9, 2020

In 1998, an 8-year-old girl living in Jacksonville, Florida went missing from her neighborhood after playing golf with a man up the street. After hundreds of volunteers banned together with local police, they made a horrifying discovery. This is the murder of Maddie Clifton. Song in intro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6Icob7sPWQ Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans? I'm your host Heath and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Hope everyone is staying safe and inside and healthy. We want to start this episode as always by giving shoutouts to everyone who gave us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts this past week. So big thanks to Erin from Minnesota, Jen from Holland, Michigan, and Antilla from Detroit, Michigan. And a big thanks to Megan from Cincinnati, Ohio, Eve from Muskegon, Michigan,

and Crystal from Denver and her awesome hairdresser. Thank you so much to Don from Germantown, Maryland, Lindsay, the good Peterson from Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Shannon from Dallas, Texas. And we've got a big thanks to Linda from Dublin, Texas, and Reese, Alexandra, we don't know where you're from, but thank you. And thank you so much to Barb from Cold Springs, Kentucky,

Shannon from Sonoma, California, one of my favorite places, and Maria from JBLM, Washington. And then we have Wendy from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Jennifer from Arizona, and Tiffany from Apocah, Florida. And thank you so much to some international listeners, PJ from Ireland, Jenny from Sydney, Australia, and DK from Sydney, Australia as well. And last but not least, we have Leslie and Melbourne, Australia,

Georgia from Adelaide, South Australia, Nikolai from the Netherlands and Marion in Canada. And for those who don't know even though we said all the freaking time, we have bonus episodes. You can find those at patreon.com slash going west podcast. So thank you so much to those who joined our Patreon this past week. Thank you again, Reese Alexandra. Thank you, Jai, Lauren, Erin, Christy, Emily, and Jessica.

And a big thanks to Caitlin, Emma, Lindsay, Katherine, Mimi, Sonny, and Anna. And thank you so much to Trinity, Shana, Megan, Natasha, Laren. I think that says Laren. I'm sorry Laren, if's an argue pronounced your name. Wayne, Ivan, Preston, Marcos, and Lindsay. Thank you guys so much.

Yes, and like Daphne said, we have bonus episodes available, so head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast, check those out, and also, if you want to shout out in the show, just leave your name and your location with a five star view over on Apple Podcasts. All right, guys, this is episode 65 of Going West, so let's get into it. Tonight we are returning to the street in Jacksonville where eight-year-old Maddie Clifton was murdered back in 1998.

Twenty years since one of Jacksonville's most notorious murders. Maddie's mom, her dad, and her sister as they and hundreds of thousands of others were still searching for her. And how detectives on the case say it was the worst murder they ever covered. He killed her and hid her body in his bedroom. He has all these certificates and he's a monk now and is found peace with his life. And that's great. But I still don't get to talk to Maddie.

I still don't get to watch her graduate from high school, watch her graduate from college, watch her get married. I don't get to do any of that and I just don't think that it's fair. I don't think it's fair that he does. Madeleine Ray Clifton, who went by Maddie, was born on June 17, 1990 in Jacksonville, Florida, to parents Sheila and Steve Clifton. She had an older sister named Jesse, who was just about three years older than her and the two were absolute best friends. They grew up in a suburban area of Jacksonville called Lakewood, which is nestled along the St. John's River, and is only about eight miles or 13 kilometers from downtown. They lived in a two-story three-bedroom house that was surrounded by palm trees. Maddie was definitely a tomboy.

She loved playing sports, especially basketball and baseball, and she even played the piano. She was pretty much a golden-trialed. I mean, she had so many friends. She was incredibly outgoing and silly and she loved having fun. Her sister Jesse later said that whenever they would watch a TV show, Maddie would always root for the underdog or the scary things that everyone was afraid of, because she didn't like the thought of people feeling left out or being alone. Her dreams in life were to be a ballerina and a pro baseball player. Maddie loved playing around the neighborhood with different people, and since they lived

in a suburban neighborhood, her parents felt comfortable letting her go out and play games with friends as long as she was back in time for dinner. And Tuesday, November 3rd, 1998, was just like any other day that Maddie played in the neighborhood after she got home from school at around 4.30 pm Well first she practiced some piano and then she went out to play It was election day so her mom had been out voting Meanwhile Maddie was chipping golf balls in her neighbor Larry Grisham's front yard Which is something that they did frequently. He was about 45 years old at the time

But he lived up the street and he knew the families, so Maddie's parents really didn't mind them playing golf together. But after about 30 minutes, Larry and Maddie had lost all their golf balls, so Maddie ran home to get more from her mom. Who by that time was home from voting. Then Maddie went back out to play. At around 6.20pm, Maddie's mother Sheila went outside and called Jesse and Maddie in for dinner. Jesse came running back to the house, but Maddie wasn't responding to her mom's shouts.

And it being 1998, it was super normal to just go outside and call your kids home when it was time for dinner. And Maddie always came running home because she kept close to the house. You know, she was either hanging out next door or just a few houses down, she never went too far. So minutes passed and Sheila went by some of the neighbor's houses to see if Maddie was in their homes, but no one had seen her. And in 1998, daylight savings ended in October, so it was definitely dark by the time she was looking for Maddie. The sun set that day around 5.47pm and twilight ended around 6.08pm, so it was pretty much pitch black, which I'm sure made this whole situation way scarier.

Sheila ran around the whole neighborhood and there was no sign of Maddie. At 6.33pm, so probably about 13 minutes after she started looking, she called the police. That first night, the whole neighborhood banded together and searched for Maddie Clifton, but no one could find her anywhere. Her whole family and neighbors were out there with flashlights, knocking on doors, going down to the river. I mean, they really looked for her. The next day, a detective from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office started questioning everyone in the neighborhood to see if he could put a timeline together.

He questioned the 14 year old boy across the street whose name was Josh Phillips. He often played with Maddie and her sister Jesse, but he told the detective that he had seen her playing, but that he didn't join her because he had chores to do and wasn't allowed to play while his parents were at work. But the detective wanted to be very thorough with everyone, so he decided to check his dad's car, as well as their storage shed, but he didn't find anything suspicious. So he continued to make his rounds questioning everyone who knew Maddie. Maddie's family dispersed missing persons flyers all around Jacksonville and they even ship flyers out of the state.

The whole city of Jacksonville was wearing yellow ribbons in Maddie's honor and her parents offered a $50,000 reward in exchange for any information leading to their daughter. All of Jacksonville was looking for a 4-foot 4-inch brown haired girl with brown eyes who is last seen wearing a red YMCA basketball t-shirt. The shirt even had the name Maddie across the back shoulders and the number 5 underneath it, so she'd be easy to spot. And we do have a photo of her missing person's poster if anyone wants to see it, we post it on our Instagram at Going West Podcast

and our Twitter at Going West Pod. I feel like that, the fact that she's wearing that red YMCA shirt makes the situation a little easier for police, unless the person who abducted her was not, or had changed her clothes or something like that. And you would assume they probably would have since our name on it, you know. Right, exactly. But I'm just thinking like a positively here. Yeah.

That could have been a positive thing for police. Totally. Within a couple of days, police had their first potential suspect. It was Larry Grisham. The man Maddie had been playing golf with just an hour or so before her mom called the police. Not only was he the last known person to be with Maddie, but he also had a criminal history. He had been arrested two separate times and charged with sexual assault. Both charges ended up being dropped though. And this was around 15 years prior to Maddie's disappearance, but it's more to Maddie's disappearance, but it's more likely Maddie's parents did not know this.

Yeah, I'm sure that they wouldn't let her hang around him if they knew. Right, exactly. But Larry said that he had last seen Maddie when she left to go get more golf balls. When she hadn't returned, he just assumed that her mom wanted her to stay home and eat or maybe do her homework. But when police took him down to the station, he filled a polygraph test. But he provided a solid alibi that checked out, so he was no longer a suspect. And I'm assuming police probably searched his house too, but I didn't find any information on that. I assume this because they checked multiple houses around the neighborhood, so I'm sure

that they checked his. But he and Maddie were really good buddies, so it's possible that he showed deception during the polygraph test because he was emotionally connected to the case because I know that happens a lot. So police continued to search frivolously for Maddie, and over 400 volunteers joined them in sweeping the city. Even America's most wanted, the popular TV show, offered to air Maddie's story to help spread the word. She was on multiple billboards and Maddie's parents went on Good Morning America to plead for their daughter's safe return. But just one week after she went missing, and also at the same time as her parents were

wrapping up the segment of Good Morning America, police learned about a major discovery from the house just across the street from the Clifton's house. It was the Phillips home, who we just discussed because some of their property was searched and the family was questioned just like everyone else. That Tuesday morning, around 7am, Josh left for 9th grade at a Philip Randolph Academy's of Technology, which offers advanced curriculum. His mother Melissa had some time before she had to go to work, so she went into Josh's room to see if he had cleaned it like she had asked him to.

When she went in, it was an absolute mess. As most teenage boys' rooms are, I know my room was an absolute fucking mess. But on top of that, it smelled horrific. It usually didn't smell great because he had three birds that lived in cages in his room, but the smell was particularly bad. So she went to go get a trash bag so she could start throwing out actual trash that was in his room and give him kind of a head start on cleaning. But as she was making her way around the room, Melissa noticed a bottle in the corner of

Josh's bed. Josh actually had a water bed, so she went over to see why there was a bottle there and noticed that it was all wet, so she immediately thought the water bed had broken or there was a leak. I'm going to try to explain Josh's bed a bit better so that you have a visual because it's kind of confusing. Yeah, it's a little bit different. If you look at the photos, you'll know what we're talking about, but it is definitely

harder to explain. So we're going to do our best. So the underneath of his bed wasn't exposed. It was like a floor frame bed. So he didn't have like an underneath the bed. Right. So there was no like like an underneath the bed. Right, so there was no like storage space underneath the bed. It was basically just a frame that was on the ground.

Right. And then his water bed mattress sat on these planks. So there was probably, I don't know, probably at least six inches to a foot. I'd probably say a foot of space. And then there was the planks and then there was the planks, and then there was the mattress. But underneath the planks, it was just emptiness. Like there was just nothing there. It was just like the carpet. So Melissa noticed that there was also a big wet spot on the floor near where the bottle was. So she automatically felt like, like what Heath said, that his water bed

was leaking, and that he tried to hide it so he wouldn't get in trouble. She touched the corner of the bed and it was soaked. So she wanted to check whether or not it was completely leaking underneath, so she could drain it if needed to ensure that it didn't soak through the floor because that would be a whole other mess. Again, since you couldn't see underneath his bed, if the water bed was leaking it would be going into that underneath area that isn't exposed. And then it could get moldy, so maybe it was moldy is what she's thinking. Maybe there's some mildew there.

So Melissa also noticed that the bed frame was broken. So she pulled the broken side, slat up, and felt around and looked to see if the floor was wet, and then she saw a sock. She wondered to herself why a sock would be there, like how it would even have gotten there since it's such a secret little area, so she went to grab it, but it wasn't budging. She felt something cold in the sock, and that's when she grabbed a flashlight so she could see better. She readjusted her stance to get a better hold and see why the sock wasn't budging.

And that's when she saw something that made her sprint out of the house. When Melissa pointed her flashlight under Josh's mattress, she saw the body of a girl. She knew in that moment that it had to be Maddie Clifton, but she was so deeply in shock that she couldn't fully register what was happening or what she was seeing. She was absolutely horrified.

Her husband Steve and Josh's father wasn't quite at work yet, so when she called his desk, there was no answer. So she left a message telling him to come home right away because this was an emergency. And with that, she ran outside because she knew that the police and investigators were still patrolling the area and questioning neighbors. Melissa says that she physically couldn't say the words out loud. So she told the officer that he needed to come to her house immediately so she could show him something.

Melissa was in hysterics, so the officer had, you know, kind of an idea of what she was signaling to, considering why he was in the area, but he still wasn't sure what happened or what she'd actually seen. He called for backup and a few detectives went into the Phillips's one story house, using Melissa's directions to go inside and to the right to get to Josh's room. They didn't want her going inside again, so she remained on the back porch with another officer when they went in. Meanwhile, Melissa was crying and praying that she had seen it wrong, and that Josh hadn't done something so unimaginable. Within just minutes, it was confirmed that Maddie Clifton's body was being hidden under Josh Phillips's bed.

Melissa was taken down to the police station to give an official statement, and she laid in the fetal position in the back of the police car the whole way there, so you can tell she's very, very, very shookin' up. Not only did she find this horrible situation under her son's bed, so not only did she see that, but it's her son. So you can't even imagine that like strange gill, she must feel that her son was potentially responsible for something so horrible. Right. Her husband Steve had gotten her message and rushed back home, but by that time Melissa was

on her way to the station. So he learned the news from the other officers Officers sped down to Josh's high school and they had to pull him out of his geography class So they could take him down to the station for questioning. He met his parents down there and Steve asked Josh If he knew what was under his bed and Josh said no Steve said your mom found Maddie in your room and this just makes things even harder because Josh wouldn't take responsibility or blame for this crime. And his parents, particularly his mom Melissa, couldn't believe that he could do it either. Josh was even part of the initial neighborhood search on the night she disappeared and was killed. And neighbors later reported that he seemed to be acting normal.

Also, just two days after Maddie was killed, a detective went to the Phillips's home to question Josh again, and the officer even sat on Josh's bed. So Melissa started wondering why the police didn't notice she was in there before, because they even brought a canine unit in. So two days

into Maddie being dead and under the bed, like how would they not have smelled her body by they, I mean the dog. And the night before Melissa found Maddie's body, the police were in their home yet again, and this time they pretty much did a full search of every house on the street. There were over a dozen police officers with another canine unit, and they found nothing and the dog didn't alert to anything in the Phillips' home. Yet on November 10, 1998, when they searched Josh's room again after Melissa had told them to come in, they found her body, along with small evidence of blood spatter on the ceiling fan, as well as bits on the floor.

And Josh's Beagle had been in and out of his room all week. And Beagles are often used as canines and TSA dogs because of their ability to smell. And just ask Heath because he has a very cute bassitound who smells everything. Oh yeah, my bassitound, that little bastard will smell out anything. I mean, he's hoovers. Oh, yeah. I mean, he's constantly smelling around. So, I mean, he's not a beagle. He's a bass and hound. But that type of breed, the beagles and the bass and hounds,

and obviously the blood hounds, those dogs can smell just about anything. Right. So it is very strange that they didn't smell or notice the blood or the body before Melissa pointed it out. Yeah, that's really strange to me. I'm not sure if, and that's the other thing that we kind of have to consider is that maybe these canine units were not specifically trained as cadaver dogs. Maybe they were just simple canine dogs that were there to help out police as far as like making an arrest. I mean, it's possible. But isn't that a canine unit's job like to sniff out or at least hears her shirt see if you can smell or somewhere?

Not specifically. I mean, if you think about like regular police that go on patrol, they usually have a German shepherd canine with them. And those dogs are typically used for apprehending a suspect by dragging them to the ground with their teeth or something like that. So I think there is a difference between canine dogs and cadaver dogs. Don't quote me on that. I'm not positive. Somebody will have to let us know. Well, either way, Melissa felt like police possibly put this evidence there themselves to

try and frame Josh. But after a full interrogation, Josh broke down every detail of what happened. During police's search of Josh's room after Maddie's body had been found, they found several types of air fresheners around the room because Josh was trying to cover up the smell. Along with a baseball bat that was hidden behind his dresser, a few rolls of tape, and a leatherman multi-tool knife that was behind the TV. They also found Josh's blood-stained tennis shoes and Maddie's missing persons flyer hanging on his bookcase. Although these were pretty incriminating alongside the bits of blood spatter, they wanted Josh to tell them what happened. And just being 14 years old at the time and probably really scared,

he told the investigators everything. And we're gonna go into a little bit of detail here. So if you're sensitive to details regarding children, I know we all kind of are, but some more than others, please skip ahead a couple minutes. On the afternoon that Maddie went missing, she ran into Josh in the neighborhood and asked him if he wanted to play baseball. Originally, Josh said he couldn't because he had a huge list of chores to do, and his parents often gave him a long list of chores so that he would keep busy until they got home from work. But then Josh decided that it wouldn't hurt to play for a little bit, but just a short while is what he told Maddie. So they went to his backyard to play a small game of baseball.

After a few minutes, Maddie threw a ball to Josh and he hit it with his baseball bat, but with great force. And the ball ended up smacking Maddie in the face, just under her left eye. Maddie began to cry and scream, because of course, this must have really hurt, and she was just eight years old. And Josh did say that this wasn't accident, he wasn't trying to hit her with the ball at all. And I wonder if this caused any kind of damage to her face, like maybe if it broke something,

because I couldn't find anything about that when I was reading her autopsy but my older brother had a similar thing happen to him when he was around her age and the ball broke his nose. So especially in that sensitive like cheek area. Yeah, definitely the cheek area or the nose. Oh man, I've definitely been hit with a baseball not with great force but like a baseball bat per se but somebody throwing a baseball to me, it's hit me in the face before. Yeah, and it fucking hurts. Yeah, I mean, and they were pretty close to each other.

You know, they were only a few feet away or so, and it just happened to just smack a right in the face. And we at least know that the injury caused her to bleed. And this freaked Josh out because he wasn't allowed to hang out with anyone while his parents weren't home. He was to do his chores and have no playtime whatsoever. So when Maddie got hurt, he knew that he could get in trouble once his parents found out. Because not only was he playing with the neighbor, but he injured her. Josh ended up taking Maddie into his room where she continued to holler and cry, and he told police that he just wanted her to be quiet.

So at that point, he hit her in the head with a baseball bat two times. Although it seemed like she'd been knocked out for a moment, she soon started to mow and cry again, and this time even louder. That's when he took his leatherman knife and cut her throat. In an effort to conceal her body, Josh pried off the side of his bed frame and put Maddie inside. And remember, his bed frame sits on the floor so you can't see underneath it unless you pull up the mattress, which is very, very heavy.

It's like a thousand pounds, like it's very heavy. And the old and the other way to go underneath it would be to break the bed frame, which is what he did. So by putting her here, she was totally trapped. Suddenly, Josh heard his dad walk through the front door in the middle of all of this happening. But after Josh had put Maddie under his bed, he still heard her breathing and moaning. And he says that he was scared that his dad was going to hear and then come into the room. So he pulled her out and stabbed her in the chest 11 times, puncturing her lungs. Then Josh started cleaning up any mess that was left and then took a shower.

And just a couple hours later, Josh joined his neighborhood in the search for Maddie Clifton. And little did any of them know, she was under Josh Phillips's bed. I wish that we knew more details about how he would have cleaned up the blood, because we know police found some on the floor and on the ceiling, and they were like fine spec, so not something that you could really see with your eyes if you're just in the room, but enough to when they actually searched the room that they found it.

But with stabbing her multiple times and slitting her throat and hitting her in the head with a baseball bat, I mean, that would cause a lot of blood, spatter. Yeah, exactly. Those are like, aside from getting shot, those are like the three main things that would cause a lot of blood spatter.

And his dad was already home, so I wonder if he just tried to conceal it all, and then the next day did all the laundry while his parents were out work again. It just seems like a really big job. Yeah, I'm kind of assuming this is just my opinion, but I'm assuming that he probably took the next day or the next few days to clean up his mess or try and clean it up the best he could. And I think also the fact that his room was a mess probably helped because his parents probably didn't look into anything any further. Because I feel like if his room was completely cleaned,

like super cleaned, they would have been a little suspicious if they found anything on the floor, any blood or anything like that. So I saw a photo of bed, and I'm gonna post it, but, er, by this time I already did post it. I'm pretty sure that it's his room, because I only found it in this one article that says that it's his bed, but again, it was only in this one source, and he has brown carpet. So I'm assuming that would help, too? Probably, yeah. That would definitely help conceal the blood spatter. I mean, it's not like he had white carpet or something like that, you know.

Well, exactly. So I think it definitely helped if he had that darker brown carpet. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that's his actual room, because I don't know why this person would post that photo otherwise, but just thrown it out there. When Maddie's body was found, she was nude from the waist down, and her underwear, shorts, and shoes were off, just leaving her with a t-shirt and socks. So police automatically got incredibly suspicious of this, but there was no evidence of sexual assault, and Josh's excuse was that these things came off

while he was dragging her to his room. But we really can't be sure exactly what happened there. And, you know, off the bat, you're thinking, her shoes, okay, maybe one shoe came off, you know? And maybe, I mean, just your pants and your underwear don't just come off from being dragged. You know what I mean? That's just a little bit of a stretch. Yeah, it seems like a bit of a stretch. In any case, even if her shorts were falling down,

you could have grabbed the shorts and pulled them back up or something, I don't know, it just seems a little bit weird to me. I don't wanna speculate too much because we really don't know how they got off. It's definitely possible that it was from Josh, but I don't know, I'm just trying to understand. Well, the medical expert who worked on the case verified that Maddie endured three separate attacks.

First, she was struck three times on top of her head and on her forehead, and these wounds alone would have been fatal within 30 minutes. When he cut her throat, the cut pierced her windpipe, which cost her to bleed out and drown in her own blood, essentially. In the stab wounds to her chest, had occurred when she was already dead. So Josh probably thought that she was still likely alive, but she wasn't.

On January 13, 1999, Maddie's autopsy was released to the public, and it detailed that she had died from multiple blunt force impacts to her head, and that she had sustained multiple skull fractures. And they believe that the cut made to her neck contributed to her head and that she had sustained multiple skull fractures. And they believe that the cut made to her neck contributed to her death. And it's good that the medical expert that was examining her did verify that there were the three separate attacks because that's exactly what Josh said, so it just helps us know that that's what happened. A little bit more on Josh Phillips. He was born as an only child on March 17th, 1984 in Allentown, Pennsylvania to parents

Melissa and Steve Phillips. Josh did have two half-brothers from his dad's side, one named Benji and the other named Daniel who was 11 years older. I don't know how old Benji was though. So they were really close when they all lived in Pennsylvania, but during Josh's childhood, Steve moved the family to Florida while Daniel and Benji stayed with their mom in Pennsylvania.

Daniel says that when Josh was a child, he was an amazing kid. They loved to play music together and they always watched movies. And he thinks that moving to Florida did a number on Josh because it gave him too much time alone, and it isolated him. But some of Josh's old classmates in Florida have said that he had tons of friends, yet some called him a bit of a loner.

And then also some teachers said that he was very silly, and that they didn't think of him as a monster at all. They said that they just saw the fun-loving part of him. And I read a lot of comments from teachers about how shocked they were when this happened, because they were just like, Josh billets, like what? You know, he didn't get into trouble, he just really liked to make people laugh. And so this was just really shocking to everyone who knew him. Josh has an above average IQ and was an average student who loved to read and work

on computers. According to everyone who knew him, he was just a normal kid. Along with the sudden move to Florida, Josh struggled with his upbringing a bit because his dad's Steve had a temper. He was often violent and abused drugs and alcohol. But other than that, Josh had a fairly happy upbringing. He had loving pets, he was a Cub Scout, and many people who knew him explained him to be very compassionate and very caring. He bears a big smile in every photo of him. So how is Josh even capable of committing this horrible and gruesome murder? I mean, I felt the same way when I was doing this research, too.

I mean, it just, he doesn't seem like a bad kid. And originally, that's kind of what you would assume. And just as I was reading more and more, it's like the more devastating it was on both parts. But I mean, there were some red flags that were raised before Maddie's murder. And one of them pertained directly to her family. So a few weeks prior to her murder, Josh had broken into the Clifton's home while they were out

and he took a photo of Maddie's 11 year old sister, Jesse. And police found it taped to his headboard. His motive is unknown, but it is known that he had a huge crush on Jesse, somewhat even say obsessed. Yeah, I would say a little bit creepy to break into your neighbor's home and take a picture of them.

Yeah, so I mean, this obviously really upset Steven Sheila Clifton, so they forbade him from coming over again. But the girls, of course, would still see him around the neighborhood, and they would talk sometimes. And on one occasion, Josh mentioned sex to the girls, and they told their grandma, and she went to Josh directly and told him that he was not allowed to be around the girls anymore. Okay, so that does raise a little bit of concern. So he's talking about sex to girls and takes a photo of one of them?

Yes, and we're not sure the context of this. I mean, I think when kids first find out about sex, I mean, they talk about it because they, it's not really appropriate as kids talk about it because you're not doing it yet. So, right, and we have to take into account that he's 14 years old. Yes, and he had probably just recently hit puberty,

I'm assuming. And so, maybe it was different coming from him. I mean, it's not like he was 24 talking to little girls about sex, but I really don't know what he said. And he was still a little bit older than them. So it just made the Clifton's more comfortable if he stayed away.

Well, when I was growing up, I have a little sister as well. And there was a kid that I used to hang out with from down the street. And I remember one time this kid, like he had a crush on my sister, and my sister had just gotten out of the shower, and he was like spying on her, and my parents flipped.

So I understand the Clifton's concerns right now. And I think too, from an adult perspective, since you know more than a kid, you're gonna be like, what the hell are you doing? Like why are you looking at her kind of thing, at least for your parents, you know what I mean? But I think from a kid, you're gonna be like, what the hell are you doing? Like why are you looking at her kind of thing at least for your parents, you know what I mean? But I think from a kid's perspective, since you have so much less knowledge regarding the world

and sex and just appropriate behavior, you might not know that what you're doing is wrong since you're so young. Yeah, true. And we have to take into account the fact that all of them are kind of around the same, well, aside from Maddie, Maddie's eight, but Jesse and Josh are kind of around the same. Well, aside from Maddie, Maddie's eight, but Jesse and Josh are kind of around the same

age sort of. Right. It's still weird. Again, I get why they wouldn't want. You know, of course, these are little impressionable girls too. So they're like, who's this boy talking about sex? Like, it's not the time for that. Yeah, yeah.

And it's definitely weird. It's definitely creepy that he took the photo. And also, you know, the more I think about it, Jesse was 11 and he was 14 so he's a freshman in high school and she's- Yeah, that's true. She's like a fifth grader. Okay, yeah, I'm thinking about me in high school in ninth grade. I didn't do that.

Yeah, like if you were a freshman in high school, would you talk to a fifth grader? Probably not. No, okay, good point. After Maddie's body was found and police searched Josh's computer, they discovered that he sometimes watched violent pornography, and there was a mention of him possibly watching something involving an underage girl, but this can't be confirmed for sure. There was also mention that he had books on devil worshipping and witchcraft. To be fair, I had books on witchcraft when I was 14 and it wasn't because I was a bad

kid, I just wanted to try and cast spells to like make myself levitate and make it rain outside. I mean, I had books on serial killers when I was 14, so you did? Yeah, I mean, I was interested. I didn't go that far. Now I'm a true crime podcast host. I waited a few years. So I'm not at all defending this boy.

He did something absolutely terrible, but I think it is important to keep the record straight. You know, the media likes to find little details and blow them at a proportion. For example, I read a headline that said something about Josh watching Child Porn. And automatically in everyone's head, you start to think he watches child porn all the time

or he's searched for child porn. But in the court documents they say that a video he may have watched may have included an underage girl. And technically that could mean 17 or it could mean 8 and he's 14. So you know he's underaged. He's also underage. It doesn't make it okay like there's those kind of videos should not even be made But we don't know the details and that's why I think it's important to give the real information for what it is So we don't potentially spread lies just like how the media wants you to know that he had these weird books So he must love Satan, you know, but we don't even know what the book was I mean like it could have been fucking Harry Potter Which I don't even I what the book was. I mean, like, it could have been fucking Harry Potter, which I don't even, I think it had just come out.

So it probably wasn't Harry Potter, but you get my drift. They're like, fucking wizard! Wizard! He did have a wizard, like, card game too, but that's normal, so they're like, oh, he's a devil worshipper, but like, it probably wasn't a book like that. I mean, they just like making things sound crazier than they are.

Right, of course. And of course, for all we know, he did watch very horrifying and predatory pornography, but I don't know because they didn't release the information in play-by-play detail. So take it how you will. Yeah, we're not going to speculate on things that we don't know about. Josh's trial began on July 6, 1999, so only about nine months after the murder. The prosecutor had a large amount of evidence

between her actual body being in his room to the baseball bat, the knife, and his own shoes being stained with Maddie's blood. But they also had Josh's confession. After just two days on trial and two hours of deliberating, the jury gave Josh Phillips a guilty verdict for the first degree murder of Maddie Clifton and sent in Sim to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since he was under 16 years old at the time he committed the murder, he was not eligible for

the death penalty. Just a year after his conviction, his father Steve died in a single vehicle car accident. He was driving on a floor to highway at 11 p.m. when he drove off the right shoulder and his car overturned. He wasn't wearing a seat belt so he was thrown out of the car. And he died in the same county where Josh's prison is, but no one knows why he was in that area that night. Maddie's mother Sheila visited Josh Phillips in prison to offer her condolences in regards to his dad's death. And just before this, Josh had reached out to talk to Sheila, but it's known he didn't show any real remorse. They spoke a few times and Josh says that she is an incredibly kind person. I mean, for her to personally visit him in prison, just a year after or a year

and a half after he killed her young daughter, to say that she's sorry that his dad died, like, what a lady. Yeah, seriously. I'm sure she had a lot of emotions talking to Josh at that point, but another year later in 2002, Josh tried to appeal his sentence, but he was denied. Two years after Maddie's trial, Steven Sheila Clifton ended their 25-year marriage. In 2004, so six years after the murder, when Josh was 20 years old, his mother Melissa tried to get him a new trial. She explained that when Josh committed the murder, he was so young and that really should have been taken into account more at the time of his sentencing. And this was actually taken into consideration.

So Josh had a new hearing, but in 2008, the sheriff and state attorney on the case and two of the people who were at the crime scene stated that they didn't believe Josh should get a new trial at all, even though they both had to think on it before giving their opinions. So part of them was like, ugh, like, you know, he was so young in his whole life away, but then they're like, we saw what he did, and he shouldn't get out. In 2012, the US Supreme Court determined that it was unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole. So this gave Josh a second chance.

Josh was granted a new sentencing in 2017 since it took years to review and accept his application. In November 2017, during his hearing, he read a long apology letter to the Clifton's for everything he did, and this was his first time apologizing to the family and speaking directly about what he did. And this was his first time apologizing to the family and speaking directly about what he did. Back in 1998, he didn't talk about it at all. And he probably just wanted it all to end because he didn't, he couldn't face what he did. But to this day, he doesn't even talk to his mom about it or answer the questions that we all have. Here's a clip from his statement to the Cliftence.

This is for the family of Maddie Clifthens. I've wanted to say this for a very long time, and I'm grateful that it's a chance to do so in person. I don't pretend to know or understand your pain, or to grasp a void that I've created in your lives. I can say this, I do understand pain. I have become quite intimate with suffering. Growing up in prison, I have seen many dark things,

and I've been to dark places. Many times throughout this journey, I came drippily close to ending my life, just to escape it all. During these times, I was embroiled in a flurry of emotions and feelings. Guilt, despair, pain, hopelessness, fear, and shame. Each time I was somehow able to continue on, mostly because I couldn't stand to put my mother

to any more trauma. She's been through enough. There were times that I was angry at her because I couldn't end my pain because of her love. Yet now I'm eternally grateful to her. I'm grateful to her because as I've grown up I have learned the value of life. I've learned to see the beauty, enjoy, and a world full of strife. I wish to God that I could have known this or understood when I was 14. Had I then, none of this would have come about. I had no clue what life meant. What death meant, nor the depths of suffering, that could follow one act. I had no inkling of how long that suffering could last. I did something horrible. I'm

so sorry. I'm so sorry for what happened. Even now, after all these years, it is just unfathomable that all this could have occurred. It tears my mind as under to know that I stole such a precious life from you, from the world. I so wish I could take away your pain. I think that I've been able to continue on in life and grow, but not a day goes by that I don't think of what led me to where I'm at. Not in prison, but in life. I pray every day that you're able to live your lives in spite of the injury I've caused you. Regardless, Josh Phillips had still taken a life, so Sheila Clifton requested that he remain in prison for the rest of his years. And with that, he was resentenced to life in prison.

But he will be eligible for another resentencing in 2023 when Josh will be the age of 39. He currently remains in the Cross City Correctional Institution in Florida. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much everyone for listening and next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. If you need episodes before then, head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. And we have about 12 bonus episodes up there for just 5 bucks. Check it out.

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