Murder In America - EP. 72 FLORIDA - Innocence Lost: The Murder of 8-Year Old Maddie Clifton

Episode Date: July 13, 2022

In 1998, a shocking murder rocked the town of Jacksonville, Florida. An eight year old child had been brutally killed, and no one knew who had carried out the crime. And the perpetrator was someone that NO ONE could have EVER suspected... - Try out microdosing for yourself with MICRODOSE GUMMIES!! To get 30% off your order AND free shipping, head to https://www.microdose.com and use our promo code "MIA" at checkout!! - Boost YOUR health and try out DAILY GEM MULTIVITAMINS!!! (They're SO tasty!!). And use our custom link to get 30% off your first order!! https://www.dailygem.co/MURDER - Head to https://www.audible.com/STATE to try Audible FREE for 30 days (or text "STATE" to 500-500)!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Find support and have someone with you in therapy. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com. That's BetterHELP.com slash MIA. Warning, the following podcast is not suitable for all audiences. We go into great detail with every case that we cover and do our best to bring viewers even deeper into the stories by utilizing disturbing audio and sound effects. Trigger warnings from the stories we cover

may include violence, rape, murder, and offenses against children. This podcast is not for everyone. You have been warned. Your neighborhood is supposed to be a place where you feel safe, especially as a child. It's supposed to be a place where you can hang out with other children, explore, run through the streets, and be a little kid, where you don't have to look over your shoulder or question people's intentions. After all, it's your home, and the people around you are familiar to you.

But as we've seen throughout our stories, danger can often creep very close to home. And that's exactly what happened in our story today. In 1998, 8-year-old Maddie Clifton was playing in her neighborhood in Jacksonville, Florida, when all of a sudden she vanishes into thin air, a mother's worst nightmare. For hours, the people of her neighborhood searched for Maddie, but no one could find her, and she would never be seen alive again. For her parents, I'm sure there were a million scenarios running through their head as to who could have taken their little girl.

But the real culprit behind Maddie's disappearance was a lot closer than anyone would have imagined, and her body would be found in the most unlikely of places. This is the story of Maddie Clifton. I'm Courtney Browen, and you're listening to Murder in America. Story starts in 1998 in a neighborhood on the south side of Jacksonville, Florida, called Lakewood. Lakewood is considered to be a good area. There's a big sense of community, little crime, and friendly neighbors. If you do a quick online search, people that live there describe it as a great place to grow your family.

Another resident said, friendly neighborhood. People look out for each other. Which is exactly why Steve and Sheila Clifton decided to settle down there and raise their two daughters in their quaint two-story home on 61-39 Fleetwood Road. The Clifton's were the perfect family, and they had a really good life together. Steve and Sheila's daughters, 11-year-old Jesse, and 8-year-old Maddie were the center of their world, and the girls were always encouraged to explore their interests. Jesse wanted to be a model when she grew up, so Sheila got her into modeling. Maddie, on the other hand, was a self-proclaimed tomboy, who loved to fish and play basketball. Both of the girls were also very skilled at playing the piano.

But no matter what, Steve and Sheila made sure to support their daughter's interests. Our whole life was our daughters and our family and fishing. The Clifton's were a very close-knit family. When they weren't going to basketball practice, dance recitals, or piano lessons, they often went on fishing trips. One of their favorite things to do together. And we were a family that went on vacations, not vacations, But we went fishing every Labor Day, every Memorial Day.

You know, you want to find all four of us in that boat fishing, camping and fishing. That's all we did. We loved our life. It was wonderful. At the time of our story, both Jessie and Maddie attended a private Catholic school. And every day after school, the girls would come home and do their chores. It was a rule at their house that they had to complete all of their chores before. they went outside to play, which is exactly what they did on November 3rd, 1998.

The girls got home that day at around 4.30, and their chores were to take down all of the Halloween decorations around the house. After they completed that, Maddie sat down at the piano and practiced for about 20 minutes until she heard her mother pull into the driveway. Sheila Clifton recalled that it was an election day. Buddy McKay was running for governor of Florida against Jeb Bush. She made sure to get off work early so she could drive to the polling station and cast her vote. And afterwards, she drove back to her house on Fleetwood Road. As soon as Sheila walked through the door, her youngest daughter Maddie greeted her with a big hug and then asked if she could go outside to play before dinner. With childlike excitement,

Maddie ran out of their front door to go play with the neighborhood kids. She and a few other ended up in Larry Grisham's yard, a few houses down. Larry was a 45-year-old man in the neighborhood who enjoyed the company of children, and he didn't ever mind when the kids came by to hit golf balls in his yard, which is exactly what they were doing on this Tuesday afternoon. The laughter of children echoed through the cul-de-sac as Sheila was inside making dinner for her family. After a few minutes, Maddie suddenly burst through the door, and she asked, asks her mom where she can find more golf balls. I had gone on in and started supper and everything,

and she came back in the door and she said, Mom, where's that blue golf ball? I said, Maddie, I do not know where that is, but I'll bet you if you go out there into the border grass, we had border grass that ran along the front of our house, and the street kind of tilted down towards our house. And I said, if you get out there and look for some golf ball, I bet you'll find a golf ball out there.

there. And she said, well, we're shooting them into the fence down the road. I said, okay, that's fine. And she went out the door. We never could find the blue golf ball. So she proceeded to go out the front yard to look for the golf balls. I was tending to getting supper on the stove, went upstairs, because I tried almost every day to take a walk after work, to wind down. And I put on my shorts. The time had changed, so I knew I didn't have a whole lot of time. So Jesse had asked me, I believe, if she could go out and play, and I said yes. And I proceeded to take my walk. As dinner cooked on the stove, Sheila went outside for her evening stroll, and her oldest daughter, Jesse, went to go join the other neighborhood kids down the street. It was nearing 6 p.m. at this point, The sun was slowly setting and the streetlights in the neighborhood began to turn on, which always meant it was time to come back home for dinner. Sheila yelled for her daughters to come back inside, but to her surprise,

Jesse was the only one who walked through the front door. Checked on dinner to make sure everything was okay, and then Jesse came in the house. And I said, okay, dinner's about ready. You guys need to wash up and get ready for dinner. Where's Maddie? My mom called us in because dinner was ready. And it was getting dark and you knew when the streetlights came on, you had to go inside. She said, where's Maddie?

And I said, Maddie's not with me, Mom. And she said, well, Maddie didn't come back out where we were. And I said, what do you mean she didn't come back out where you were? She was going to go down and hit golf balls with all the other kids at the end of the road. And she said, well, I don't know, Mom, but I didn't see her. So Jesse was, I said, well, honey, let's go fine Maddie. There was a brief moment of confusion, but Sheila wasn't panicking just yet. Like we mentioned, Maddie was adventurous.

And she had a lot of friends in the neighborhood, so they just assumed that she was at one of her friend's houses. Maddie's best friend was a boy named Jeffrey. So they started to walk to his house, but then they remembered that Jeffrey was sick. So Maddie couldn't have been there. Sheila and Jesse then go door to door throughout the neighborhood looking for her. But as they make their way down the cul-de-sac, their anxiety grow stronger. No one in any of the houses has seen Maddie Clifton. So we walked out the door and we started going to neighbor's houses, one after the other. And I headed to the ones that had children at them first because I figured that Maddie would be there. I thought about

Jeffrey's house, which was like three houses down, and Jeffrey was sick, and I didn't really know that. But Jesse told me, Mom, Jeff is sick, so Maddie's not over there. I know that. I said, where do you think she can be, honey? And she said, I don't know, mama. I don't know. So we just went from house to house to house to house asking, have you seen Maddie? By now it was a little after 6 p.m. and it was getting dark. And Sheila knew deep down that something was terribly wrong. She had been to every house in the neighborhood and no one had seen her eight-year-old daughter. And it wasn't like Maddie to stay out this late.

By this point, many people in the neighborhood had gathered together in the street to help find her. Maddie's neighborhood friends even had their flashlights and were walking up and down the streets calling her name. But there was still no sight of her. And it was here at 6.33 p.m. when Sheila decided it was time to call 911. This is a sheriff listen. My daughter went out to play with it. I thought she was with my other daughter and now she's missing. How is she?

She's eight years old. Where was she playing out? I'm right around the house. She's a white female? Yes, she's a white female. Does she have or was she not? She had on a red t-shirt. And mama, did you have on gym?

I went up stairs, Mama, I had searched. Wow. Blue jeans? Mother did she have on blue jeans? What did you have one? What type of shorts? Hair shorts? Hair shorts?

Yeah, on hair shorts. And a red shirt. She blonde hair, flat hair? She's got reddish brownie? Reddish brown hair, it's actually a brown with an all her intent to it. What about her name? Her name? Her name is Maddie.

She goes, Natalie. What about name? Collis, C-O-I-S and Frank T-O-N. The last time anybody saw her? What, Mama, where time did I come home from voting? About 4.30 to 5.40 was the last time we saw her. And then she just, and nobody knows what. Are friends there about it?

Did you go check? I got everything we're out here right now. Okay. This will be there shortly, then you keep looking, okay? Okay, you know I am here. You're a ride home. 61.08 Fleetwood. 601.8 Fleetwood.

It's a quarter of Fleetwood, and my husband just came home. Bring the 911 call. Sheila's husband and Maddie's father, Steve, walked through the door after a long day of work, completely unaware of the chaos that had been unfolding at their home. As it were, she was on the phone with 911 when I pulled up and, you know, just, I mean, not that there's any good way to put it, said, Maddie's missing, Maddie's gone.

I mean, I was in disbelief. I'm like, well, she's here somewhere. I mean, Maddie's here somewhere. I'm sure Steve thought that this was all a big misunderstanding. That's probably what most people assume at first when they can't find their child. But soon enough, he too came to realize the severity of the situation. Maddie was gone and the police were on their way over to start their investigation. Sheila felt completely hopeless.

She was experiencing every mother's worst nightmare. The panic that rushed over her was unlike any feeling a human could experience. Until the police arrived, she continued to stand in her driveway, screaming her daughter's name over and over again. It got to a poor where I just, I thought. I actually stood out in our front yard and urinated in my shorts. I was so upset screaming her name. The helicopters came.

I think I have a part of a PTSD. I don't like to hear helicopters ever again. Yes, it was like a circus. And there was everybody going in every direction possible trying to find her. Eventually, the entire neighborhood was filled with every neighborhood was filled with every first responder the city of Jacksonville could find, and everyone was desperate to find the missing eight-year-old. Aerial searches, canine search, cadaver dogs, there was an endless list of things. Anything we could

dream of help we tried. But it didn't matter how hard they tried. After searching for hours, Maddie was still nowhere to be found. Sheila and Steve were told to try and get some rest, but how does one sleep knowing that their baby girl is still out there? Millions of thoughts ran through their head as to what could have happened. And with each passing moment, they felt like their entire world was crashing down. Sheila said about that first night without Maddie, quote, I felt lost. This is not really happening. Would somebody please wake me up from this dream, this bad, bad dream?

end quote. By the next morning, there was still no sign of her, but Sheila didn't want to sit around waiting, so she decided to call the local radio station to spread the word about Maddie's disappearance. She's four feet, four inches high. Chestnut hair, cut short with bang. She has freckles.

Call that one name. This is the mother. This is Sheila Clifton. Just go ahead and tell what happened. Right. Well, when I got home last night, it's about 515. I met her at the door.

And she asked, she could go out to play because she had finished her chores, which was removing all the heavy things out of our front yard. And also, she practiced her pedium. And she was going out to play, and it was the last did anybody show up for me. After this, the news of Maddie's disappearance spread like wildfire throughout Jacksonville, Florida.

And before long, everybody in the community knew Maddie Clifton's name. Just about everywhere you look in the Jacksonville area and beyond, you will see Maddie's face. Over the next few days, dozens of people in the area came together to search for Maddie in and around her neighborhood. And the volunteer site was set up at the Clifton household. The next day, my house became a company. Half my church moved into my home. And thanks to the good people of San Jose.

say Catholic in my church community, they set up shop in my house and they were bound and determined they were going to find my little girl. The volunteers walked through the forests, streets, and swamps, scanning the ground for clues, calling out Maddie's name, just in case she was out there. But after days of searching, there was still no sign of her. The Jacksonville Police Department even brought cadaver dogs to each of the houses in the Clifton's neighborhood, looking through their neighbors' sheds, attics, basements. crawl spaces and garages, but still nothing.

Now, according to the Washington State's research on child abductions, 88.5% of children are murdered within 24 hours of their abduction. And at this point, Maddie had been missing for two days, so the odds weren't looking very good. But Steve and Sheila Clifton refused to give up hope. They believed that Maddie was still alive. Through the day and into the night, friends and neighbors work with police coming the south side for clues

about Maddie's whereabouts. On Friday, Maddie's family talks publicly for the first time, thanking everyone for their help and they express hope that Maddie is still okay. And we're not giving up. This is just the beginning. We are not giving up on finding Maddie. Maddie is out there and she's ready to come home. That Friday, the U.S. Army Reserve was even called to open up the manholes and look through the culverts for the missing eight-year-old. The city of Jacksonville, Florida was covered. in missing persons flyers. And by that weekend, $50,000 in reward money

had been raised for information on Maddie's whereabouts. Her family even passed out yellow ribbons to everyone at the Jacksonville Jaguars football game, in honor of Maddie. That even include, at some point, I guess the Jaguar game Sunday going out and giving people, I think, yellow ribbons, I guess, for Maddie. Everybody wore a yellow ribbon for Maddie.

They were being passed out throughout the stadium. And were you, Still hoping that she would be found? Oh yes. So, yes, sir. Now by this point, the Jacksonville Police Department had racked their brains trying to figure out what could have happened to Maddie Clifton. And there was something that stood out to them early on in their investigation. According to Steve and Sheila, in the months prior to Maddie's disappearance,

they started to notice some strange things happening around their home. screens would be removed from the windows holes were found in the sheetrock all things that led them to believe that someone had been breaking in to their house yes it was a bizarre series of events that went on for it's hard to say went on for months easily and it became quite evident that somebody was trying to and had gained access to our home while we weren't there it started out as I would find screens to the windows removed from the windows and thrown in the yard and you know I didn't think a lot of it and wind blew them out there was a time when I first noticed something odd inside the home in fact it was in

Maddie's bedroom behind her clothes in the back of the closet, a hole in the sheetrock, about that big around, about three foot above the floor. And it's like, how in the worry? Of course, I question the kids and, you know, they did as a parent say, okay, kids, what did you do? Yes, exactly, exactly right. So that was one of the first times that I, again, in retrospect, realized that someone had been in the home. At first, Steve didn't think much of it. After all, nothing of value was ever taken.

But things did start to become more serious as the break-ins continued. I was home first when the break-ins started occurring. We would get home from school and the windows would be broken. And I remember being terrified. Another occasion, Jesse had actually found, she had posters in her bedroom, I don't know, Backstreet Boys or whatever it were, in the day and she I don't know whether she was going to move on but anyhow we

found like three or four hammer holes behind a poster and then the poster just dropped back down over it that was on two walls of Jesse's bedroom as I recall behind a photograph and again a poster and another time the kids there were staples all over the house I had a staple gun I'm a handy man of sorts and anyways there were staples shot in their bed, you know, not into the mattress, but just kind of like click, click, click, click. They were staples throughout the house, not a huge quantity of them, but several here, several there, several in the walls, several into our handrail.

We had a two-story house. So again, just bizarre things. Did you suspect kids were involved in doing criminal mischief type things? Yeah, yeah, you know, again, at first, of course, I thought it was our kids. Sometimes they would have their little cousin, Mitchell, come over, and, you know, you get three or four kids to get three kids together and, you know, anything can happen. So I kind of rid it off as that. And then I started noticing some pry marks and Jimmy marks on the windows outside. And it's like, well, you know, my kids aren't going to try and pry the window open to get into the house.

I know, you know. So a couple of times, I believe twice, definitely once I called the place. police and I said, I got to, you know, had this document and make record of this. Somebody was trying to break into the house and it had become apparent by that time that someone had been in the house other than our children and their playmates or whatever. After seeing the holes in the walls, the staples all over the ground and the prime marks on the windows, these break-ins were becoming a lot scarier for the Clifton family. Who had been breaking into their house, and why were they doing it?

If the person wasn't stealing anything, then what was their purpose of being there? But it turns out the unknown person had stolen something from the home. It was a photograph. I found a frame with a picture missing. The picture that had gone missing was of Maddie's older sister, Jesse. It was a dance picture of hers where she's wearing a leotard and doing a backbend. This was especially concerning to the Clifton's because out of everything that they could have taken, why a picture of their 11-year-old daughter?

After the police discovered this information, they suspected that whoever had been breaking in was the same person who abducted Maddie. And as many of you may know, most child abductions are committed by someone that the child is familiar with. Stranger abductions are not as common. So investigators had to look into everybody. that knew the family. And someone that they were looking at in the beginning was the Clifton's neighbor, Larry Grisham. Like we mentioned earlier, he was always playing with the neighborhood kids,

and after doing a little digging, investigators found out that he did have some run-ins with the law in the past. Mr. Grisham was also one of the last people to have seen Maddie on the day of her disappearance. Investigators would later question him, but he was adamant that he had nothing to do with it. He said that Maddie left his home that day to go get more golf balls, but she never came back. So he assumed that her mom just made her stay inside. And because of Mr. Grisham's past, the police weren't buying it. And they ended up searching his home a total of nine times throughout the entire investigation, only to come up with nothing. But the detectives working the case were confident that Maddie Clifton was still somewhere

within the neighborhood, so they continued to focus their search there. And they didn't know it at the time, but these detectives were right. That Tuesday, November 10th, marked one week since Maddie Clifton disappeared, and there was still no sign of her. That morning, the show Good Morning America came to the Clifton's home to interview them about their daughter's disappearance. They hoped that in doing so they could bring awareness to Maddie's case and maybe even talk directly to Maddie's kidnapper.

Steve, Sheila, and Jesse could be seen on the interview wearing a t-shirt that read, Help Us Find Maddie with a big picture of her face on the front. You could see the exhaustion in their eyes, and you could hear the desperation and their voices. But despite everything, they still had hope that they were going to bring Maddie home alive. You know, without any leads to go on, we just don't know what to think. Wherever she is, just let her go somewhere safe and just let her come home to us. That's all we want. That's all anybody wants.

But right when the interview ended, with hope still in their hearts, the Clifton's would get a knock on their front door that would change everything. Had just wrapped up shooting the story in my home. You and Steve talked to you. Yes. And they had just finished. finished wrapping it all up when the police knocked on the door and came in. And from the looks on their faces, I knew what had happened. I knew they found her. Both Stephen and I knew.

And they sat us down on the couch and said Maddie was found. And she was, I don't know exactly how she put, how they put it, but she was dead. After receiving the earth-shattering news that Maddie's wouldn't be coming home alive, the Clifton's then had to face yet another heartbreak. They had to tell Maddie's older sister, Jesse. Jesse had been upstairs in her room with a police officer playing Monopoly when they called her downstairs. Came downstairs and my family was standing in a circle and it was just like any other day. Everyone was crying and upset and I got pulled into the middle of the circle and they said, Jessie, we found Maddie, and she's no longer with us. And I cried. And I ran out by a garage

door, and I started yelling her name because I didn't want to think that that was true. And I felt in concrete. In that very moment, their entire world had been turned upside down. The hope that they had been holding on to was shattered. Shortly before the Clifton's got that dreadful knock at their door, a neighbor of theirs named Melissa Phillips was cleaning up around her home. It was your typical Tuesday morning, and her husband had just left to take their 14-year-old son, Josh, to school. And as Melissa was cleaning, she couldn't help but stare out the window at the dozens of police officers at the Clifton House. She felt terrible for their family. Having your child disappear is something she could never fathom. And everyone in the neighborhood was really shaken up about Maddie's

disappearance. Her husband and son actually helped search for Maddie on the night she went missing. But to distract herself from the commotion going on outside, Melissa continued to clean. When she past her 14-year-old son's room, she was disgusted by how messy it was. She and her husband had been telling Josh to clean it for weeks, but like many teenagers, Josh didn't mind the mess. There was trash all over the floor, clothes everywhere, and it smelled horrible, despite the number of incense he had been burning to mask the smell. But this was normal for Josh. You see, he had birds that he kept in his room, and he wasn't the best at cleaning out their cages. So it wasn't uncommon for his room to have a stench.

And although Melissa was a little annoyed about the mess, she knew that it had been a stressful week, so she figured she would just clean it for him. She started by gathering all of the trash from the floor and putting it in the trash can. Slowly but surely as she picked up his room, she could see. start to see his carpeted floor again. But as she took a look at the ground, something caught her eye. There, next to Josh's bed, was a stain. Now Josh had a waterbed, which was pretty popular around that time.

But if you're not careful with them, they can pop and leak. When Melissa saw this water stain on the ground, it kind of started to make sense as to why his room smelled so bad. It must have just gotten moldy. So she bends down to investigate the leak, and she saw that beneath the mattress was a broken baseboard that Josh had taped back together with electrical tape.

Melissa slowly took the tape off and tore the baseboard back so that she could get a better look at where the leak was coming from. It was dark underneath Josh's bed, and she couldn't see much, but she was able to make out a white sock. Melissa reached her arm under the bed and tried to pull it out, but the sock didn't move. She then goes and grabs a flashlight so she could get a better look.

And this time, when she goes to grab the sock, she realizes that there's something inside of it. The sock slowly slipped down, and Melissa's fingertips were now touching something cold. When she shines her flashlight under the dark bed, the light reveals something that would turn her life upside down. She would later say, quote, it could not be what I thought it was, yet somehow I knew exactly what I had found. The beam of the flashlight shined down on the decomposing foot of a child. Melissa knew right away that it was the body of Maddie Clifton.

She had been underneath her 14-year-old son's bed the entire time. Millions of thoughts ran through Melissa's mind, and she couldn't help but glance across the street at the Clifton's home, which was still surrounded by police officers. She knew that as soon as she stepped outside to tell them what she had found, her life would be over. And knowing that everything was about to come crashing down, she decided to call her husband.

But Steve Phillips wasn't at his desk, so instead, Melissa left him a frantic voicemail. We're sorry. You have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service. Melissa would later say, I paced the floor clutching the phone to my chest, willing it to ring, but it didn't. It seemed like an eternity had passed,

even as it seemed like time had stopped. The police had been in our neighborhood for a week, ever since 8-year-old Maddie Clifton disappeared. All I had to do was walk out of my front door and get an officer to come back with me. It seemed surreal walking out of my front door. What was I doing? I was about to implicate my own son

in this horrifying discovery. As I walked down my driveway, I glanced over at the Clifton's house, and I realized right then and there at that very moment they still had hope, but in a few moments they would know that their little girl was never coming home again. How could I do this? Melissa then walked over to one of the officers that was on their street, but when she went to tell him what she had found, she couldn't seem to form words. How does one even verbalize that they just found a body under their son's bed? So instead, Melissa,

tells the officer that she needed to show him something at her house. Seeing that she was distraught, the officer calls for backup and follows Melissa inside of her home. She pointed him towards Josh's bedroom, but couldn't bring herself to step inside. Instead, she waited on the back porch, while investigators took a look under Josh's bed. Melissa would later say, I prayed and sobbed that what I thought I found was not true, but only a few moments later, my worst fears were confirmed. It was indeed the body of Maddie Clifton under my son's waterbed.

I wanted to die right on the spot. I prayed for it. There's no way I could face what lay ahead for my family. And Melissa was right. This was only the beginning of the long nightmare ahead for her and her family. Josh was at school during the discovery of Maddie's body, so investigators had to pull him out of class and place him under arrest. I'm here to announce the arrest of Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips, white male 14, of 61.39 Fleetwood Road.

Joshua lived at that address with his parents, his father, Steve Phillips, and his mother, Melissa Phillips. He has been charged with murder. and he has confessed to the crime of killing Maddie Clifton. The mother went into the suspect's room this morning and she noticed a fluid coming from under the bed. That couple with an odor apparently aroused her suspicion and she pulled out the corner of the of the bed right here when she pulled that open she could see the feet of the victim her body was securely in tuned in the encasement of that water bed and it wasn't like there were legs that you can look under the water bed it she was she was

in tune securely and there were clothing that was put around the corners and on the back to make certain that the the the odor stayed in. Sheriff, let me ask you this question, as macabas as this may sound, are you saying that perhaps for the last seven days someone may have actually been sleeping in that bed not knowing the body was there? I think the suspect knew that the body was there. And I think the suspect made a conscious effort to mask the emerging odor by using the use of it. of incense and some deodorizing agents.

But yes, you could have, he probably stepped in that bed. It was quite a gruesome site. I don't want to get too graphic here, but when you start to smell about it, then of course, they're at a stage of decomposition and it's one of those sites that that no matter how long you've been a police officer, it's one that sticks in your mind, and it will stick in my mind. When the police pulled her small body out from under his bed, Maddie was in active stages of decomposition.

She had been under Josh's bed for seven whole days, and he would later tell investigators that it started smelling the day after she died. For seven whole nights, he slept over her, while his entire neighborhood was in a frenzy trying to find the missing eight-year-old. No one had any idea that she was right across the street the entire time. To mask the smell, Josh had been burning incense and different deodorizers, but it could only do so much.

It was also obvious when the police pulled her body out from underneath the bed, that Maddie had been murdered. This was no accident. There was a large laceration on her head, two stab wounds in her throat, and nine stab wounds in her chest and abdomen. Maddie had been savagely attacked by her 14-year-old neighbor who lived across the street. So who is Josh Phillips? He was Steve and Melissa's only child, born on March 17, 1984.

St. Patrick's Day, a day usually associated with luck, but for the Phillips family, they would forever be stained by a bad seed. The family of three moved several times during Josh's life. When he was four, they rented a house in Rutland, Vermont, only to move again the following year, but this time to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. While there, Josh joined the Cub Scouts, rising up the ranks to Wolf Cup, and during this time, Josh's parents decided it would be a good idea to let him get a dog. He loved his life in Pennsylvania, and soon found a passion for Little League baseball. But eventually, the family had to move again, and they ended up settling in Lakewood around 2006.

Sadly, family life was not always a particularly happy one. His father, Steve, was a strict disciplinarian with a temper, known for his affinity for punching holes in walls and booze. But supposedly, he was never physically abusive towards Josh or Melissa. By the time Josh was 14, he was very tall and skinny, with brown eyes and sandy brown hair. Those who knew him described him as a normal and happy kid with a lot of friends. he wasn't a misfit or a loner, as one might assume.

In fact, he was described as being loving, caring, and generous. Enrolled at the Philip Randolph Academy of Technology, he was a typical ninth grader and maintained a solid C-minus average and was known for being a bit of a class clown, but never a problem child. He had good attendance. Even after the murder of Maddie, Josh went to school every single day. According to his mother, Josh was a very sweet and compassionate kid. gentle even. He had a big heart for animals. A lot of their home videos showed him doting over his

dogs and birds. He really was your average all-American kid who loved to read and play on the computer. And after watching these videos, these home videos, Josh seems harmless, more harmless than most 14-year-olds I've known. In fact, Josh had never even gotten into any trouble in his life. Not with the law, not in school, more anything. He was always a compassionate kid, very gentle and sweet with the pets, and babyed his dog, and babyed his birds. Any great folks? You see 180 pounds of love here. Melissa and Steve Phillips said that Josh was a great kid.

He didn't have a violent side or an angry temper. But after Josh's arrest, he admitted to killing Maddie. And the 14-year-old was now sitting in jail. His mom would later say, quote, that's not the way he is. He's never hurt anybody, end quote. But what investigators found inside of the home painted a different picture of Josh Phillips. In the days after his arrest, investigators spent countless hours searching through the Phillips home. And in Josh's room, they found the murder weapons.

We found a lever knife. and a baseball bat. The bat was hidden behind his dresser, and the knife was behind his TV. They also find dozens of air fresheners he used to cover up the smell of death. There was a can of odor eater, a can of air freshener spray,

two glade plug-ins, a liquid air freshener, Fabrize fabric spray, and incense. Investigators found multiple rolls of tape, blood-stained tennis shoes, and blood spatter on the ceiling fan. On his nightstand, they found one of Maddie's missing person flyers. And next to that was the missing picture of Maddie's older sister, Jesse, the one that had been taken from the Clifton home while they were out of town. That's right.

Josh Phillips had been the person who was breaking into the Clifton home, months prior to Maddie's murder. According to the kids in the neighborhood, Josh was obsessed with Jesse Clifton, even though she was only 11 years old. He was so obsessed that he had been breaking into their home and taking pictures of her to put next to his bed. Investigators even found some home videos where Josh had videoed himself hanging out with Maddie and Jesse. Here you can hear the girls as they ride their bike up to his house. And there's a neighbor from across the street.

Hey. So she's across the street. And then she's also from across the street. The last little voice you heard was Maddie Clifton. Josh had been hanging out with the sisters for the past two years since he and his family moved in across the street from them. Did you and Maddie play with the kids in the neighborhood and stuff?

Yes, sir, almost every day. Okay. And was one of the individuals that you guys played with Joshua Phillips? Yes, sir. Okay. Did he live right across the street from you guys? Yes, sir. When Steve and Sheila Clifton got word that Maddie had been found under Josh's bed,

they were devastated. She had been right across the street that entire time. But it turns out that Clifton's had suspicions of Josh for a lot. a while. For one, Josh was three years older than Jesse and six years older than Maddie, so it was a little weird that he wanted to hang out with them every day. But again, all the kids in their neighborhood would hang out outside, and they were all different ages. So it's not like they were hanging out one-on-one or anything. But earlier that year, an incident occurred with Josh and the girls that made Steve and Sheila a little uneasy.

My mother approached me one day and she said, do you know a lot about the kid across the street? I said, no, not really. Well, she said, well, he was overheard talking to the kids out in the road, because they all gathered around in a group. And he was talking to them about some things that he shouldn't be talking to my granddaughter's about. And I said, what? And she said, well, he said something about being able to have sex because he knew and not get a girl pregnant because he knew how to use. is a rubber. That was what just kind of hit me.

And I thought to myself, good Lord, my girls don't even know what a rubber is. Actually, there were two instances. One, he was telling a joke, just a very inappropriate joke that an 11-year-old or an 8-year-old should not hear. And then also, there was a point where there was a magazine that was shown. a pornographic, like a playboy, I don't remember the name of the magazine, but there was a magazine actually shown to Maddie and I and a couple of the other kids in the neighborhood.

After their grandmother overheard this, she told Steve and Sheila, and from that point on, they weren't very comfortable with their daughters hanging out with Josh. Yeah, I told that both girls under, you know, no uncertain terms that they weren't allowed to be seen with him or to have any contact with Josh. And in fact, you take steps also, in fact, to prevent Josh or Phillips from coming into your residence or anywhere in New York? Yeah, yes, absolutely. I didn't want him, you know, around the children at all.

And disturbingly, Josh had actually helped the Clifton's look for Maddie on the night she disappeared. When Sheila went running through the neighborhood, she knocked on the Phillips front door. They were doing whatever. And I said, has anybody seen Maddie, Josh? Josh, have you seen Maddie? And he picked up his flashlight, and he said, no, but I'll go help her. I'll go help find her.

So Josh Phillips got a flashlight and was going to, and participated in trying to find Maddie, correct? We played football and they are during the search. We played a lot of games multiple times during the search with Josh. He never said anything to you or to anybody to your knowledge about where she was or what that he knew anything. He acted like he didn't know, correct? Correct. No, sir. He didn't say anything like that.

Josh walked through the neighborhood that night, pretending to look for eight-year-old Maddie, all while knowing exactly where she was. After the search that night, Josh returned back home, and he laid down in bed and went to sleep, just inches above her body. In the days following her disappearance, Maddie's dad, Steve Clifton, had been running through every possibility in his mind. And surprisingly, he even told investigators to check out Josh Phillips as a possible suspect. From the beginning, he had always suggested that Josh was the one who had been breaking into their home. He had also remembered the inappropriate conversations Josh had been having with his daughters. So Steve thought he should be looked into.

Some point prior to Maddie being found, her body being found, you in fact, I told the police that Joshua Phillips possibly could be the person involved in some way in her disappearance, correct? Yes, yeah, I did. I told them I had some strong suspicions because at the time there was no doubt in my mind that he was the one that were breaking into our home. And, you know, some of the statements that he's made around the children. and, um, yes, yes, I did tell him that. And the detectives did follow up on this lead. Just three days after Maddie's disappearance, Detective William Taylor knocked on the Phillips front door to search their home.

Did you end up going to, um, the Phillips residence on Fleetwood Road, sir? Yes, I do. Okay. Specifically, did you end up going, um, to that residence and talking to Joshua Phillips. Yes, thank you. When Josh opened the door to the detective, I'm sure fear was running through his body.

And because Josh was a minor and he didn't own the house, the detective asked to speak with his parents. But Josh told them that they weren't home. It was just him there at the time. William Taylor then calls Melissa Phillips and asks her permission. to search the house. And of course, she agrees.

The detective then walks room to room in the search of the missing eight-year-old. Josh slowly followed behind. His heart raced as the detective got closer to his bedroom. Maddie's body had already started to smell by that point, and he was nervous that William Taylor would notice. But before Detective Taylor stepped into his seat, bedroom, Josh walked up ahead and sat down on his bed. He thought to himself that maybe if he sat

on it, the detective wouldn't look under it. William Taylor recalled that Josh's room smelled horrible, but seeing that there was animal cages next to his bed, he assumed that that's where the smell was coming from. Did that include that conversation that you had with him, and that include meaning that's His bedroom. Yes. And did he at any time when you were speaking to him sit on that bed? Yes, he did. Okay. As we entered the bedroom, he entered the head of me, and he went and kind of lay across the bed with his legs hanging off just the side. Did you smell anything when you were in there talking to Joshua Phillips? When I walked in, I noted at the foot of the bed. There was a large, a large, wire crate that was apparently his puppy's cage. I observed in the crate three piles of manure

and also observed in the left-hand corner that there was a cage that had I believe it was two parrots in it and I observed that there looked to be about three or four inches of bird drop and sent so there was there was a strong smell in there any. Josh and the detective continue to have a conversation as Josh sits just inches above Maddie's body. William Taylor was an experienced detective, but Josh showed no signs of nervousness like you would think. Nothing to indicate that Maddie's body was in that very room. And he seemed to answer all of the detective's questions with ease. If you could, tell us what you asked in terms of just talking to him,

what you asked Joshua Phillips and what he told you on that day. I was going through his room. I searched in the closet. There had been a big pile of clothes, and I went through those, and there was a teddy bear at the bottom. And then I turned around, and I started tapping the sides of the bed to see if it was sturdy in contact. And I said, Josh, this is a waterbed?

He said, yes. And I said, do you like it? He said, yeah. He said, I do. I said, yeah, we'd had one at one time and liked it for a while and all. And then I said, Josh, what do you think may have happened to Maddie? And he said, I really don't want to think about what happened to. After searching the remainder of the home, Detective William leaves completely unaware

that he was just inches away from Maddie's body. And something that would shock everyone, including law enforcement, was that during the search of Maddie Clifton, investigators had been inside the Phillips household three separate times, but no one noticed she was there. We had searched that house three previous times, and the reason that we didn't find Maddie was because of the way she was encased in the bed.

We had a consent to search. And ordinarily, we would not disassemble furniture with the consent, with people in the neighborhood being cooperative. And as a result of that, we did not find her body. We did have dogs on the outside of this house, but the dogs never went in. So it wasn't, it was not like the dog missed. By the time Maddie's body was found, she had decomposed so much that she had to have a closed casket at her funeral.

I wanted desperately to see Maddie before she was buried. The funeral home director said too much time had passed that I did not want to remember Maddie that way. I could not say goodbye to her. I could not kiss her or hold her. They told me she was in that casket, but I could not see her. The news of Maddie's death was devastating for the community of Jacksonville, Florida. And four days after her body was discovered, they held her funeral at the San Jose Catholic Church. At the front of the church sat her small ivory coffin, which was sealed shut.

Lovingly placed on top was a picture of her smiling and a beautiful assortment of pink and white flowers arranged in the shape of a heart. Over a thousand people came to pay their respects. people that never even knew Maddie could be seen crying among the crowd. Because for the city of Jacksonville, Maddie was everyone's daughter, everyone's sister, and everyone's friend. After seven days of searching, people felt like she was one of their own, and no one had expected this outcome. But the Clifton's found comfort in the overwhelming support they received from their community.

Steve would later say, it was an amazing sight that we will never forget for the rest of our lives. But there were still so many unanswered questions. The main ones were, how did she die? And why? With Josh Phillips behind bars, investigators were slowly starting to get those answers. Josh's dad, Steve Phillips, accompanied Josh in an interrogation room and told him to come clean about everything. And there, sitting next to his dad, Josh started to tell the story of what had happened on November 3, 1998.

According to Josh, he got home from school that day at around 2.30 p.m. and he was supposed to come home and work on his daily chores. His mother Melissa would later say, quote, he had to take care of the dog, take care of the birds in his room. He was supposed to clean his room, do his own laundry, water the plants and trees, take the leaves out of the pool, load and unload the dishwasher, he had to cook one meal a week, he had to vacuum and vacuum and, every day and he had to shower every day."

These duties were boring to Josh but they were supposed to keep him busy and out of trouble. But considering the state of Josh's room, I doubt that these chores actually got done. But anyways, Josh tells the police that on that day he was slacking to get his chores done, and instead he spent the afternoon surfing the web. Investigators would later look at his computer history and find that Josh was looking at pornography from 422 to 457 p.m., which was only about 15 minutes before Maddie came to his house. And disturbingly, Josh was looking at violent pornography that included children and torture, which his parents don't believe.

They think that the cops planted it there on his computer. Now, Josh was watching porn at 457 p.m., which was about the same. same time Sheila came home and told Maddie she could go outside and play. According to Josh, about 15 minutes later at 5.15 p.m., he was outside raking the leaves when Maddie walks up to the chain link fence and asks him to play. Josh tells Maddie that he can't because he has a lot of chores, but she's persistent, so he eventually agrees. But he made sure to tell her that she couldn't stay for long, because his dad was supposed to be getting home from work in about 15 minutes. And Josh wasn't supposed to have people over unless his parents were home.

So according to Josh, the two then took turns hitting the baseball in the backyard. When it was his turn, however, he swung a little too hard and the baseball ended up hitting Maddie in her left eye, leaving a large gash. Josh said that it was an accident, but Maddie started wailing because of the pain. Now he didn't want to get in trouble and Maddie was screaming pretty loud, so he said he picked her up and brought her inside of his bedroom. Once there, he tried to get her to stop crying by putting his hand over her mouth, but Maddie continued to scream.

Josh said that in that moment he knew he was going to get in a lot of trouble, with his dad. He wasn't supposed to have anyone over, let alone an eight-year-old little girl with a head wound. Josh said that he began to panic, knowing that his dad would be home at any moment. So to stop Maddie from screaming, he picks up his baseball bat,

holds it over her head with both of his hands, and slams it down on her skull three times, as hard as he can. The coroner would later say that Those three blows to the head would have eventually killed Maddie Clifton, but she didn't die immediately. Maddie was now unconscious, lying on the floor of Josh's bedroom. But after a few moments, she began to whimper and moan. According to Josh, hearing this made him panic again.

So he grabs his leatherman knife that he keeps on his bookshelf, and he stabs her in the neck two times. Maddie's tiny little body couldn't fight back against the 14-year-old boy, and she was slowly passing away. on his bedroom floor. Josh looks at the clock and sees that his father should be home at any minute. Thinking quickly, he breaks off the wooden panel of his waterbed and shoves Maddie underneath. While he's doing this, he can hear his father walk through the front door of their home. Josh quickly puts the wood panel back, concealing Maddie from under his bed. And then he goes out in the common area to greet his father.

But on his way over, he quickly realizes that his hands are covered in blood. So he takes a sharp turn towards the restroom to clean himself off. What are you doing in there, Josh? His father asks. Oh, I'm putting on my acne cream. I'll be out in the second. I'm really hungry, Dad. Do you think you can go ahead and start dinner?

Josh did his best to deter his dad. and it seemed to work. When he exited the bathroom, however, he could still hear Maddie moaning from underneath his bed. So he walks back into the room, removes the wooden panel, pulls Maddie out, and stabs her another nine times in the chest.

It was here where Maddie Clifton passed away. Once he was sure she was dead, Josh used his feet to kick her back under the bed. Then he taped the wooden panel back together before eating dinner with his parents. Shortly after this, Sheila Clifton would come knocking on the Phillips's door, looking for her daughter, and Josh pretended to help them, calling out her name throughout the streets of their neighborhood. When Josh finishes telling this story to the detectives, everything seems to be adding up. everything except for one detail he left out.

You see, when investigators pulled Maddie's body out from underneath Josh's bed, she was nude from the waist down. When they asked Josh about this, however, he claims that after he hit her in the eye with the baseball, he dragged her inside by her shorts, and they must have fallen down then. He said that he had attempted to drag her from, outside and that that didn't work and he picked her up, brought her in and laid her down inside

the back door and then wanted to move her to the bedroom, tried to move her again, and that's when her pants and panties came off. Now, you weren't challenging mom that you were just letting him talk to tell you what he said, correct? Yes. Even those subsequent investigation proved that not to be accurate in terms of that part of the story. Now, based on the evidence at the scene,

investigators didn't believe that that's how Maddie's pants came down. In their minds, it seemed more likely that Josh lured Maddie inside of his home and that it was all sexually motivated. But Josh denied this. The one big question throughout this entire story has always been, Why? Why would a kid who has never gotten in any kind of trouble murder his eight-year-old neighbor? His friend that he had been hanging out with for the past two years.

When investigators ask Josh, he tells them that he was scared. He said that he was afraid that he was going to get in trouble with his dad and that he was afraid and he only wanted her to stop crying. I questioned him, why would you, if she had been hit in the head, why, you know, do more injuries. tour and he said he was just afraid and panicked. According to a psychologist who would later evaluate Josh, he was very afraid of his father. Now, it's been confirmed that Steve never physically abused Josh or his mom, Melissa,

but he was known to get angry, especially when Josh disobeyed. Josh said that his dad would often punch things when he got really upset. And that that day, when Josh hit Maddie with the baseball, all he could think about was his dad standing in the backyard screaming at him, punching his fists together. When 48 hours asked Josh what he thought his dad would have done to him, he replied, disown me, get rid of me. He threatened me that a couple of times. So in that moment, he snapped and he killed Maddie so that he wouldn't get in trouble. When Steve was asked if he ever blamed himself for what happened, he said, Looking back at it now, there's some things that I did that I would probably handle differently,

but I don't know if it would have made a difference. Josh's trial started in the summer of 1999, and the prosecution decided to try him as an adult. In their minds, this crime was far too brutal to be handled in juvenile court, meaning if convicted, the 14-year-old could face life in prison without the possibility of parole. This is a case about the brutal first-degree murder of an 8-year-old child. Listen carefully to the defendant's efforts to make. All of this seemed like an accident. Josh's parents and his attorney, Richard Nichols, however, thought that this was far too harsh.

They were fighting for manslaughter. We have a 14-year-old boy who had never harmed anybody and had no history of violence, had no reason to set out to harm Maddie, injured her by accident, panicked, and ultimately she died. The psychologist that evaluated Josh said that he wasn't the third. type of person who got pleasure from inflicting pain on others, and it truly did seem like he was remorseful. But the prosecution made sure to point out the flaws in Josh's story. The prosecution pointed out that there was never any blood found on the baseball, the one that supposedly hit Maddie in the eye that day, which led them to believe that the entire story

of him accidentally hitting her was all made up. They argued that Josh was sexually aroused that day And when he saw Maddie walking through the neighborhood He convinced her to come inside They also mentioned Josh's obsession with Maddie's older sister, Jesse How he had snuck inside of the Clifton home And stolen pictures of her Another reason that they thought this crime was sexually motivated

Was because there was never any dirt found on Maddie's clothing According to Josh himself, after he hit Maddie in the eye, he dragged her inside as she was crying. And the Phillips' backyard was full of dirt. So if he dragged her, then why weren't her clothes dirty? To the prosecution, this baseball accident just didn't add up. They also pointed out that this wasn't a situation where Josh snapped, accidentally killed her, and then quickly hit her body. body. Josh attacked Maddie three separate times. He hit her in the head with a bat. Then he came back minutes later and stabbed her in the throat. And then came back a third time with nine stab wounds to her chest. The prosecution even brought Josh's waterbed into the courtroom so that they could show the jury where Maddie's body was located for the seven days after her murder. And with that, on July 8, 1999, after the jury deliberated for two hours, they came back with a verdict.

The state of Florida versus Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips. We, the jury finds a defendant a guilty of murder in the first degree. The verdict was a celebration to some and a heartbreak to others. The Clifton's believed that Josh got the verdict he deserved. Why should he be able to walk around free one day when their little girl would never get the chance? As for the Phillips family, they were devastated. At his sentencing on August 20th, Melissa and Steve Phillips told the court how upset they were about the verdict. There is no one on this earth who was more shocked at the discovery in his bedroom than I.

There are no words to describe what I felt that morning. And I stand here still with reasonable doubt in my heart that Josh even did what he was convicted of. But for the state to prosecute a 14-year-old professor-degree murder is ludicrous. But not everyone in the courtroom felt the same way. At the end of Josh's sentencing, Judge Charles Arnold would say, It is written in the 17th chapter of Luke that Jesus said to his disciples, that it would be better if a millstone were hung around your neck and that you were thrown into the sea than to cause harm to a child.

I'm certain that on judgment day you, Joshua, O Patrick Phillips, will be given a far harsher sentence than I can impose. And with that, Josh Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Now, this case is very controversial. There are a lot of people out there that believe Josh got exactly what he deserved, a life in prison for the life he took.

But other people out there think that his sentence was far too harsh. They believe that no one under the age of 18, should be sentenced to life in prison because their brain hasn't fully developed. In their minds, everyone makes horrible decisions when they're young, and you shouldn't have to pay for those bad decisions for the rest of your life. But where do we draw the line? Yes, teenagers make bad choices, but what if they take the life of an innocent child? Do you believe they should be sentenced as an adult?

It's definitely not so black and white. Now in 2002, Josh appealed his conviction, but it was denied. And over the next few years, he slowly came to terms with the fact that he would likely be spending his life in prison. He had a lot of time to think about the crime he committed and the lives he destroyed. And in 2008, nine years after his conviction, Josh sat down to do an interview with the Florida Times Union. Here's what he had to say. I've grown a lot and I've matured a lot. And I can't really tell.

This is just average, I've grown up maturing. The fact that I had to come to terms in dealing with that I'm going to die in here, I might do 60, 70 years in prison, really help me mature and help me grow morally and help me develop empathy, a much stronger empathy now than I ever had. Josh said,

that growing up in prison really opened his eyes about the severity of his sentence. Then one day it just kind of hit me. I remember what it was, too. I came out of the chow hall. When I came out of the chow hall, I see this line of people, and there they are. There's like 30 or 40 of them. You know, this is that we're cull in the panhandle. They're all 60, 70 years old.

Or they're just 50 and look really bad, you know, because the prison time is rough on them. They all got canes and walkers and so on that. It's the pill line. They've got to pick up their medication. And it's like, wow. You know, that's going to be me. And that's what it really hit me.

It's like, oh, my God. And I got really depressed when that happened. And I was depressed. I was in a phone for a little while because it has finally set in. And then I really started thinking, like, man, then I started out, because at first it was just that, that's going to be me. Then I didn't realize how long it was going to take me to get there. And that's when I realized, like, oh, my goodness, I'm 15 years old.

You know, it's going to be 60 years before I look like that, you know what I mean? And then even then I might live longer, you know? When asked if he ever thinks about Maddie Clifton, Josh said this. All the time. All the time. And it always puts me in a mindset or it's like, not always, but a lot of times. I end up going like, all right, well, maybe I deserve to be here. Maybe I deserve to be as much time.

I deserve to die in prison. But I always usually come back with the thought that I can't look at it like that, you know, and that doing that is just a cop out and fake in it. You know, you just saying, screw it. And why would I try to learn anything? Why would I try to improve myself? Why would I try to do anything to help anybody if I'm just going to lay down and just die in here, you know? So a lot of people say, do you think you deserve to get out?

I said, I don't know my same answer as I always said before is I really don't know if I deserve it or not, you know, but I know I want it. I want to get out. I want a second chance. And I know that I would live by it. You know, I know I would do good. When I think about it now, I always, I had this kind of like an old apology lightning thing I go through

to make sure that she knows that I'm sorry, you know, and also that I'm trying. I'm trying to make her life for something. I'm trying because I'm still here. So I'm trying to make certain that I can be somebody, not because I need to be somebody, but because I can be someone who can help people. You know, I don't want to be just about Josh.

Over the years, Josh faced a lot of regret, and he mentions in the interview that he wants to apologize to the Clifton family, but he's waiting for the right time. I've had a lot of people say, you know, hey, you should write and do a, you know, thing, you know? And I'm like, I'm like, I can't do that. You know, it has to be really cheesy, you know what I mean? It is this ain't working. I can't do that. Something like that, if I were ever talked to them, it would have to be something personal. They deserve to hear it for me in person,

if there's going to be something like that. You know what I mean? It has to be, you know, so you can see the sincerity. They won't be able to see it in the letter, you know what I mean? And I They won't be able to see it through a phone call, or they won't be able to see it while I'm on TV with them or something. You know what I mean? They had to see it in person. If they saw them, we talked to them, they would see it. They wouldn't have a doubt in their mind, you know. Throughout the years, Maddie's family found comfort in the fact that their daughter's killer was behind bars.

And like any family, they did their best to grieve and move on with their lives. But that process was difficult, especially in 2012. You see, that year the Supreme Court ruled that it. it's unconstitutional to automatically sentence someone to life in prison without parole if that person is under the age of 18. They did this because the juvenile brain is underdeveloped, and they believe no child should be sentenced to life based on a crime they committed during these developmental years. But this didn't just include future cases. This included all people who had ever been tried as an adult when they were a child. This ruling was devastating for the Clifton family, because it meant that

Josh Phillips could possibly be let free. And in 2016, the courts reviewed his case and gave him a new sentencing hearing. At the hearing, witnesses testified to Josh's excellent behavior throughout his 17 years in prison and whether or not they think he would ever reoffend. So here's what I can say. His prison record looks pretty darn good for the amount of time that he's done. He's got really four minor disciplinary reports. He moved jobs a lot, but that's exactly what the department does.

He's had some pretty good jobs. I don't see any periods of confinement really or any time that he's not working. So in general, it's a pretty good clean record. And interestingly enough, Harry Schorstein, the prosecutor in Maddie Clifton's case, who worked so hard to put Josh in prison, now believes that he's been rehabilitated. He did not have a violent criminal history before he committed the crime, and his record in prison, is my understanding, does not involve violent criminal. activity in prison so I think all of these factors would load on the expectation

that he would be pro-social safe citizen upon release the bottom line and I'll be be quiet unless you ask me questions is that there's no question that you're looking at a different individual at age 14 and you'd be looking at age 20 21 22 or older, it's pretty much a scientific fact that we weren't fully aware of at the time of this draw. But Maddie Clifton's family doesn't think Josh deserves a second chance in life, when Maddie never even got a chance to live hers. Here's what they had to say at the hearing.

The defendant through this brutal murder of Maddie robbed her of her chances to go to school, to fall in love, to get married, to have children, my grandchildren up. I often wonder what her life would have been like. The defendant now wants a second chance to live a normal life. Who does Maddie get to appeal her death sentence to? Who grants her a second chance at a normal life? Why should the defendant be allowed to live normally while Maddie lies in cold at a grave? Joshua's incarceration is not going to bring Maddie back.

or restore the lives of our families, but a punishment must be applied. I believe Joshua Phillips should spend the rest of his life in prison for what he took from us all. There's just, I can't bring myself to think that you should ever, ever be able to walk outside of a prison because she can't. At this hearing, Josh Phillips also got a chance to speak. And after 17 years, he finally apologized to the Clifton family for the hurt he had caused. This is for the family of Maddie Clifton. I've wanted to say this for a very long time. And I am grateful that his chance to do so in person has arrived.

I don't pretend to know or understand your pain or to grasp a void that I have created in your life. I can't say this. I do understand pain. I had become quite intimate with suffering. Growing up in prison, I have seen many dark things, and I've been to some dark places. Many times throughout this journey, I came directly 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. But ultimately, the judge ruled that Josh's actions back in 1998 were worthy of a life sentence. And today, Josh Phillips, who's approaching his 40s, is still incarcerated,

and he will likely stay in there for many, many years to come. Hey, everybody, it's Colin here. I just want to thank everybody out there again for listening to this week's episode of Murder in America. Courtney and I are so just blessed to have such amazing people out there listening to the show every week. We are so thankful for everyone. Good hair days do more than we give them credit for. When your hair feels healthy, you show up differently. You feel more confident, more relaxed, and you're not constantly checking the mirror. Nutraful supports hair health from within and delivers results over time. So your hair becomes something you enjoy, not something you stress about.

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That has joined the family and is joining in every single week from across the world. Shout out to everyone outside of America that listens to the show. It's crazy to see how vast our listener pool is. We really span every continent. It's crazy. But I want to thank our new patrons for this week. We have a couple. So thank you to Eric Baldwin, J.T. Vole, Leslie G. Rivera, Emily R., Sheem Williams,

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able to continue producing this show. So thank you to everybody who has been a patron. And yeah, we have some amazing plans for the rest of the year. We have some huge cases coming up. We're expanding our team. We're getting our ducks in line. All right. I think that's the saying. But yeah, I'm so glad everyone has been enjoying the show so much. I know Courtney and I both definitely did not expect to have this much success with it. But we are so blessed and thankful. And yeah, we will be back next week with a brand new story. and we will, I'll catch you later. Yeah.