RedHanded - The Baraboo Bonebreaker | #421

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

The police knew their suspect was a sexual sadist – one who had trapped a young boy for days and took great pleasure in slowly, methodically, snapping every bone in his legs. What they didn’t expect was that this ghastly resident of Baraboo, Wisconsin was still just 17 years old. And it wasn’t his first time.H&S spin the sinister tale of a twisted young psychopath, hiding in plain sight in an unassuming Midwestern town.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. Grab a coffee and discover Vegas-level excitement with BetMGM Casino. Now introducing our hottest exclusive, friends, the one with the multi-drop. Your favorite classic television show is being reimagined into your new favorite casino game, featuring iconic images from the show. Spin our new exclusive because we are not on a break. Play Friends, the one with Multi-Drop, exclusively at BetMGM Casino.

Want even more options, pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games from blackjack to poker, or head over to the arcade for nostalgic casino thrills. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, Please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. I'm surreting. I'm still, Hannah, allegedly. Allegedly. There's no allegedly is in this story. It's all straight, hard facts. Love it. They're my favourite. In your fucking face, because it is very nearly Halloween.

Exciting. Uh-huh. Things. Yes. Happening. Yes. Ghosts. Yes.

Clop Hill. Yes. Yes. And? Clippety Clop. The other one. Uh, Kennington. And I won't be Hannah then.

I'll be someone else. What, Hannah? It's trying to tell you all, because she is just too excited to get the words out. guys is that you know here at red-handed we love October we love Halloween it is our most favourite month it's both of our birthdays it's the spooky season and we like to cram the five weeks of October with all things scary and we usually end the month with a little Halloween story swap we thought we'd do something a little bit more extra this year and we've actually gone off sight on site what's the word we're off in the wild we're in the wild we're in the

of Bedfordshire for one week and then in the worlds of South London. Yeah, pretty fucking wild down there. Yeah, for the second week. And we've actually pulled together some very fun people to do, collapse with it. I know. Fun spooky people. Very spooky. So stay tuned for that

next week and I would highly recommend for the next two weeks. While, of course, you love listening to us on whatever podcast platform you like listening, head on over to the red-handed YouTube channel because you will be wanting to watch what will no doubt unfold because we haven't actually recorded them yet. Nope.

At the time of recording this. So I don't know what's going to happen, but I have it on good authority from the team that security men with dogs may turn up. Yes. And I am going to dress up as, I'm not going to say who, but I have been planning this for years.

I've just been waiting for the opportunity. I'm pumped. I'm pumped. I'm sorry. The team told me who you're going out. Oh, I put it in Slack. Oh, okay, that's fine. I'm keeping my Halloween costume a secret,

but I have had to purchase some Pape-Mache glue. Oh, love. That's all I'm telling you, guys, for now. So you're properly making, making something? Yeah. Don't look in the red-handed Amazon boards. Okay. Anyway, stay tuned.

Like I said, next two weeks, last few weeks of October, please, please, please, go check us out on the red-handed YouTube channel so that you can watch all the fun and all the scares and maybe some arrests of us, I don't know. But for now, we're not going to be in any of those places. We're going to be going back to Sunday the 31st of July 1995, where our story starts. Because it was on that day,

the police in the small town of Baraboo, Wisconsin, received the most disturbing 9-1-1 report they'd ever had. The caller, a 13-year-old boy named Thad Phillips, claimed to be trapped in a house where he'd been held captive all weekend by a crazed kidnapper who'd smashed every single bone in his legs. Thad sounded so calm that officers thought this might just be some sort of particularly dark, teenage prank. But when they arrived at the address, they found Thad lying on the floor, just like he'd said. Weak, dehydrated, and though he didn't know it, just hours from death.

His limbs were swollen, black and blue, and twisted grotesquely like a broken doll. And though Thad would walk with a limp for the rest of his life, at least he'd survived. Thad had fled the clutches of another teenager that they'd go on to dub the Baraboo Bonebreaker, an eerie nickname conjuring up images of voodoo rituals and satanic sacrifices. But the truth was even more sinister in its mundanity. This horrific torture had been carried out by a 17-year-old sexual sadist with an appetite for the sound of cracking bones. And while Thad had lived to tell the tale, at least one.

other boy was not so lucky. So if you've got the stomach to stick around and hear the full grizzly story, brace yourselves, because this is going to hurt. Is it badgers that don't stop biting you until they hear your bones crack? Oh, I feel like when you said that it unlocked some sort of horrible memory of having heard that at some point. I feel like I've heard, well, I know for a fact I heard that as a child, whether it's true or not, I don't know.

They can fuck you up, though, butchers. I've never ever seen a badger. Never seen a badger? Never seen a badger. Not in light. No, never. Not even in the zoo. Do they have badders in the zoo? I'm sure there's probably a zoo somewhere that's got a badger. Never seen a badger. I think I've seen one once.

But they're nocturnal, aren't they? And they're black. So maybe they're around you all the time. Maybe. I just obviously rather famously spent my childhood feeding, feeding the rats in my garden, most likely. I've told you the story, right, of when I used to put jam sandwiches out for the foxes. Because Blue Peter told me to.

Blue Peter did tell us. us too. I remember that very clearly. And they even told us to write in to get some fucking mange medicine to put in those jam sandwiches and my parents were like, have you been leaving these bloody jam sandwiches outside? It's just rats. There's just rats everywhere. But at least none of the rats had mange anymore.

Anyway, as the name might give away, Baraboo, Wisconsin has a pretty unusual history. It is a very unusual name. I think Wisconsin because there's like a higher density of Native American people there, There are a lot of, like, not English names for things.

So we're just like, Baraboo. That sounds crazy. And Baraboo was actually the winter base of the Ringling Brothers Circus from the early 20th century. And because the circus was there, it was fairly common to see all sorts of curious sights in Baraboo, tigers, elephants, clowns, all sorts parading around Baraboo's red-bricked streets. I went to the National Centre for Circus Arts last night. Tell me more. I'm learning how to do the aerial hoop. Was this your first session?

Yes. How'd it go? I didn't cry or kill anyone, so it was better than that time I went to pole. So it's quite high. It's like big hula hoop size. Sure. And I would say the top of the hoop is where that lamp is. So to get yourself up is really hard.

So you have to sort of like jump, pull yourself up on your arms and kick your legs up, which is really difficult. That sounds fucking impossible. Well, it's not. I think you just have to like, I'm not scared, which is good. But obviously there were other girls in the class who were like tiny, who were just straight up there. And I was like, I will find you and I will kill you. But there's a lot more of me to hoik.

So like, I don't think it's because I'm not strong enough. I obviously can get stronger. But I think my brain hasn't calculated how to counterbalance the like, to get me up there quicker. I think I'm going to be able to do it as what I'm saying. I have every faith, but that sounds absolutely terrifying. The fact that I'm not scared is good. I'm not scared of falling.

Sure, sure, sure. But absolutely wrecks your hands in the back of your legs. The teacher was like, your hands will get tired before the rest of your body and you'll feel really frustrated. Jesus Christ, I can't even change the footage sheet on my own. I was thinking about it for ages because, obviously, I really wanted to do pole, but I'm too sweaty.

Sure. And obviously, I murdered that teacher. So I've been thinking, because Eric, hoop is not as reliant on grip as pole is. And there's also tape on the pot. So it's easier to grip, basically. And once you're up there, you can get quite pretty, quite fast. But getting up there is the challenge.

I still have to figure. I can only do it one way. And she did have to bring the hoop down like six inches, which was humiliating. But if it's at like my chin height, I can do it. If it's above that, I believe. I can't. Well, there you go. So I'm just going to go to like parks and just hang off stuff until I'm really

strong. Sure. And then I'll go, fuck up, because I can't go next week because we're clippity plopping. So I've got two weeks to build the back strength of a lifetime, basically. I'm here for it. Don't run off and join the circus, though. I don't love camping.

So big tents is not. It's not for me. Great. Anyway, beyond the shadows of the tents and the big tops and the scent of sawdust, still hanging in the air. Baraboo by the mid-19. 90s was just like any other Midwest town, small, familiar, safe. A place where everyone knew everyone, and hazy summers was spent swimming in nearby Devil's Lake

and in the Wisconsin River. There was no sense of danger lurking under the big top. At least. Not yet. For the kids who lived there, Baraboo was just home. In July 1994, one of those unsuspecting kids was 14-year-old Chris Steiner. having just completed eighth grade at Baraboo Middle School Chris is excited to start high school in the autumn

but first he wanted to start saving up his own money and so on the 3rd of July he worked his very first shift at his new summer job at McDonald's knackered after a hectic day Chris conked out on top of his bed still in his clothes his proud dad George looked in on him at about 10pm and he found him to be sound asleep It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid.

We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well researched. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists out there's been like eight of them.

A dash of sarcasm. garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. That mother f***er is not real! And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you love to hop in the way back machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast. Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. All right, should we talk about the signal awards? Sure. Sure. That is the level of enthusiasm. We would love you guys to have for us too. Because if you remember, we made the podcast series Flesh and Code with Wondery. We were super excited like the minute they brought that story to us. Because if you haven't listened to Flesh and Code, it's essentially about following people who essentially fall in love with their like AI companions. It's about Russian interference and all sorts of crazy things and about how these AI companions are to be trusted. whether this is a good thing, how it was impacting on a larger scale, and the ramifications when a replica that was the company at the heart of it took away the erotic role play function and didn't go well. Spoilers. So we loved making it. We spent, what, 18 months making that show and we worked so, so hard on it. And so we are going to ask a very small favour of you guys,

shockingly to us. Flesh and Code has been put up for the listener's choice category of the Signal Awards, 2025. So we would love you guys to please help us out and basically try to get some more eyes and ears on Flesh and Code because it was a real labour of love for us. What you guys need to do is go to the Signal Awards website and vote for Flesh and Code. Again, it's in the listener's choice category and you can find us under documentaries. That's the category you're looking for. And then under limited series and specials.

Voting is open until the 9th of October so you really don't have much time, like literally go do this now. And we would just be so incredibly grateful because if we did win the listener's choice for Flesh and Code at the Signals Award, then it would just mean the world to us. Thank you. But the next morning, Chris was late getting up for a 7 a.m. shift. His bed was empty and his tennis shoes were missing, as if he'd just got up and slipped out in the middle of the night. From the start, alarm bells were ringing for Chris's parents. The patio, door was unlocked, and a screen on the ground floor bedroom window, belonging to Chris's

brother Jim, who was out that night, looked to have been cut open. Muddy footprints, larger than Chris's size, trailed in and out of the house. Yet bizarrely, the police didn't seem to think anything was particularly suspect. They simply pushed the theory that Chris had just been lured out by mates for some late-night teenage shenanigans, and they just encouraged George and Kathy Steiner to keep the faith. Salk County Sheriff, Virgil Butch Steinhorst, which is a very authoritative name, I have to say, said the following.

I guess what we're looking for is a campsite that might have a pair of black tennis shoes sitting there, or maybe an old abandoned house or a cabin where teenage kids might have a party. Which, sure. Sure, Butch. Hmm. But is there no other possibility?

I mean, maybe. It's the 90s. Yeah. But as the days passed with no word from Chris, and his friends insisting that they hadn't seen or heard from him, the cracks in their optimism began to grow. And a week later, Kathy and George received the news that no parent ever wants to hear. Chris Steiner's body had been found by two jet skiers in the Wisconsin River, snagged on a partially submerged tree at the edge of a sandbar.

His body had clearly been in the water for a while and was in such an advanced state of decomposition that he had to be identified using dental records. An autopsy found that his cause of death was drowning and the medical examiner recorded no other visible signs of traumatic injury to his body. Since Chris was found in the river and the cause of death was drowning it seemed pretty obvious what had happened to him. He'd gone into the water and he drowned.

But, the authoritative, The authorities still didn't know the circumstances of how that happened. So the manner of Chris's death was officially listed as undetermined. The working theory was that Chris had gone out swimming with his friends that night and tragically drowned in some sort of accident that the local kids were keeping quiet about due to fear of getting in trouble. And maybe. But I think just a lot of assumptions being made there

because a group of kids keeping a secret like that just seems a bit unlikely to me. I feel like at some point, one of them is going to be like, our friend Chris is fucking dead and we left him in the river and they're going to crack. And the fact that no parents report any of the kids acting weirdly, people are not good at keeping secrets, like especially kids. I feel like stand by me really perpetuated the myth that children can keep secrets.

I just don't think they can. No, no. And Chris's mum, Kathy, was also not buying it. She reckoned if there had been a party, someone would have caved by now and told the truth. And I have to agree. So Kathy told the local paper, the Baraboo News Republic, that the story of a moonlit swimming trip just didn't add up for her.

For one thing, Chris was found in the river still wearing the bulky woolen jumper that he'd gone to sleep in. Not exactly summer swimming at. higher. In Kathy's gut, she knew that what had happened to her son was no accident. And the rumour mill agreed with her. It always does. Troubling stories were starting to circulate, with one name coming up time and again. Joseph, Joe Clark, a 17-year-old local boy who had a nasty reputation around Baraboo. At six feet tall, weighing 190 pounds, which is just about 13 Stone. He was your classic high school bully from an 80s horror film. He reportedly

liked to hang around with younger boys so he could pick on them and was described as having a split personality that could flip in an instant. He regularly got into fights. He barely showed up to school. All in all, bad seed. Ticks all them boxes. Soon it was basically gospel around Baraboo High School that Joe was involved in Chris Steiner's death. To the point where he even dropped out of school entirely because the chatter about him having something to do with Chris dying was so loud. But, as Detective Paul Hefty put it,

it was all hearsay. Nobody could provide evidence that definitively incriminated Joe Clark and so the trail ultimately ran cold. Kathy and George Steiner buried their teenage son on the 14th of July 1994, refusing to believe that his death was an accident and praying that one day the truth. might come out.

Exactly one year after Chris Diner's funeral, a new family moved to Barabu. Thirteen-year-old Thadde Phillips had no clue about what had happened last summer. He was just an ordinary kid who loved collecting sports cards and models and was keen to make new friends in his new town. Two weeks after moving there on Friday the 28th of July,

Thad and his five-year-old sister fell asleep on the sofa whilst watching a movie after dinner. His parents, Connie and Don, thought the pair looked cute and didn't want to disturb them. So, in a very 90s way, crept up to bed leaving them to sleep. And this is what I talk about with my friends

when they're like, oh, my child has a very strict sleeping schedule, very strict bedtime. And we're like, did you have a bedtime growing up? And I was like, we were definitely, the kids just fell asleep watching TV and then your parents would just like take you up to bed. Oh, yeah.

Right, no one was like, oh, it's time to go to bed now. and I'm going to tuck you in and read your stroke. Maybe that's other people's childhood. I didn't have that. So the parents leave them in the living room. And at some point in the early hours of the morning, Thad felt himself being gently lifted off the couch

and carried through their new house. Now first, he didn't think too much of it. After all, like I just said, his dad would often scoop him up and put him in bed if he dozed off downstairs. But instead of his cosy bed, Thad's bare feet touched the cold ground

outside the house squinting in the darkness Zad realised that the man carrying him wasn't his dad at all it was an older kid around 17 or 18 Still Thad didn't immediately freak out totally

In his groggy state he figured that it must be a family friend Maybe someone he knew or his big brother from school I do think it is quite astonishing. I'm astonished every single time I watch a child be moved from car into house and they're completely asleep. I'm like, how are you doing that? That's insane. Obviously, we are all screaming, stranger danger, but Thad just didn't realize that he had anything to fear in boring, safe, baraboo. He even thought that it might be a neighbour having car trouble who, since his dad was asleep, had turned to him for help. So as we follow Thad from here, let's bear in mind that he was only 13 and he had been tucked away in Dreamland just a few moments earlier.

Yeah, I think people may be like, why wouldn't he just start screaming? Because he doesn't know this person that's picked him up and taken him outside. But there is such a thing as normalcy bias where you are just like, this can't be something crazy. This must just be something totally normal. There must be a reason for why this is happening. And there isn't. It's not, but Thad's 13 And he's running through

And remember we're not speculating About what's going on in his mind As we told you at the start Thad survives So he is telling us this story afterwards He just didn't think There was anything weird going on So when the mystery guy

Told Thad to follow him The Still Groggy 13 year old boy Did just that They arrived at a ramshackle house About half a mile away Which is when Thad's spidey senses started tingling a little. The place was, in Thad's words, a real dump,

strewn with dirty dishes and piles of rubbish. And it started to dawn on Thad that this probably wasn't a friend of his family. And yes, this is a story with enough bizarre things going on that we don't really need the twists and turns because it was, you guessed it, just who everyone in the town thought was a wrongan.

Joe Clark. His parents, Bertha and Ron Clark, were away for the weekend, Joe's sister in the nearby town of Portage, leaving Joe with the place all to himself. The thing is, Joe Clark didn't immediately pounce like a kidnapper from a horror story. In fact, he was being weirdly nice to Thad Phillips,

treating him like a mate, dropping by on a totally normal pre-planned visit. Thad says he was being the nicest guy in the world, even telling Thad that some kids whose names Thad did recognize from school would be arriving for a party any time now. So yeah, there's all a bit weird, but Thad probably felt chosen and pretty bloody cool. Remember, he's 13, Joe Glark is 17. And then when his sort of kidnapper, who'd introduced himself as Joe,

invited Thad upstairs to check out his collection of baseball cards, Thad went willingly. To this day, he says he can't explain why he did it. All he knew is that he didn't feel scared. Yet. In the bedroom, things changed fast. Suddenly, Thad's new friend, Joe, shoved him back onto the bed and violently twisted his right ankle until it snapped.

The pain was sudden, shocking and intense. Thad stared down at his ankle in horror. It was facing backwards. I think that's one of those things that your brain cannot process what you are looking at. God. Thad wasn't the only one who seemed to be reeling. His attacker, Joe Clark, sat on the bed next to him, put his hands to his face and started mumbling to himself. So in that split second, Thad instinctively seized his chance to escape.

Rather than pain, he remembers the strange feeling of his ankle bones slipping past each other as he tried to stumble down the stairs and out of the house. He was running on pure adrenaline. That's what they say if you cut yourself quite badly and you can't. get anywhere. You should stitch it up immediately because once you go into shock, you won't be able to. But if you do it immediately, you're still getting adrenaline, you can't feel it. And yeah, any sort of traumatic injury that happens like that, you don't feel it too much later. I mean, when I crashed that bike and like split my fucking head open and scraped all the skin off my leg, like I couldn't feel a thing. Couldn't feel a fucking thing. When we got to the hospital

and the doctors were like, what the fuck? Because I look like Carrie with no trousers on, because they'd been torn off. I just was like, can somebody please help me? I've had an accident. accident. I was totally fine. It was the next day that the pain was like, oh my God. Human body's amazing. Thank you this time, Brian. But you also do some really fucked up shit that I don't like. Thad managed to make it as far as the kitchen before Joe Clark caught up with him, putting him in a chokehold and tossing him onto the couch in the living room. Then Joe yanked Thad's right leg up towards his head and kept pushing on it until it snapped. again Thad was in too much shock to truly register the pain

saying I just heard my leg pop He had no way of knowing this But Joe Clark had just broken his ankle, his femur And hip bone in the space of just a few frenzied minutes It's unbelievable That somebody could just break somebody else's legs With their bare hands Well apparently

Like your fingers are only about as tough as a carrot It's just your brain that stops you from breaking them. Yeah. And like fingers, yes, I could see. I could totally see somebody if they were willing enough to grab your fingers and break them. Your legs. Yeah, true. It just feels like, oh, the level of intentionality, the level of force,

I don't know what force you would need to apply to break somebody's legs, but the level of intentionality to do it and go through with it twice in minutes from a 17-year-old is shocking. Thad had just come face to face with the animal side of Joe Clark. But now, in the calm that followed the storm, Joe Clark was suddenly relaxed and friendly again. Scared out of his mind, Thad attempted to engage in conversation in the hopes of putting Joe off from hurting him even more. Thad asked Joe why he was doing this.

And that's when the older boy came out with a disturbing confession. He told Thad that he was fascinated by the sound of breaking bones. and he's not talking about just the way like you crack your knuckles and to some people that might feel good to me that feels fucking horrible I never crack my ankles that feels little gross I hate the sound I hate the feeling and I hate it when people do it to me as well but no

who's cracking your knuckles oh fucking people think it's so funny to grab my hands and crack my knuckles what? People in my family that's inside think that's hilarious and I'm like what's wrong with you don't do that I don't care if it's not going to give me arthritis it's fucking gross Anyway, that kind of thing was not going to satisfy Mr Joe Clark. When Thad dared ask him why he didn't do it to himself like break his own bones,

Joe actually revealed that he had tried. But he apparently, quote, couldn't get the angles right. It was like a grisly science experiment, with Thad as the wriggling live bait on the desk. But Thad, as terrified as he was, was determined not to let him. his fear show. He bravely asked Joe if he had ever done this to anyone else and Joe said. Yes. Since he was new in town, Thad didn't recognise any of the three names that Joe told him.

But he would remember one. Chris S. That name meant nothing to Thad yet, but it should to you, if you've been paying attention. And then as casually as if they were having a sleepover, Joe Clark told Thad to get some rest before hitting the hay himself. Needless to say, Thad didn't get a wink of sleep that night. He lay awake, terrified and in agony, the full weight of the danger he faced, settling into his already battered bones. Meanwhile, Thad's parents woke up at about 4 a.m. on Saturday morning

to find their young daughters still sleeping peacefully on their sofa, but no Thad. There were zero signs of any sort of break-in at the house. Thad's shoes were also still right there, where he'd left them. Don and Connie Phillips had an uneasy feeling But they tried not to fear the worst straight away The fairground was in Baraboo that weekend So perhaps their excitable teenage son Had just impulsively snuck out with some new friends to explore

So they spent the entire day driving around the town Frantically searching for Thad As they hadn't had a chance to meet their neighbours yet They didn't go house-to-house asking questions Something Don Phillips bitterly wished he had done because remember that's only like half a mile down the road then on Sunday morning more than 24 hours after Thad had disappeared they finally faced the unthinkable and filed a police report

but without clear signs pointing to an abduction it was again treated as a runaway case the police basically said that they'd keep a lookout for that telling Connie and Don to stay close to the phone Connie described it as hell Half a mile away, Thad had been going through a hell of his own. On Saturday morning Thad asked Joe if he could call his parents, and to his surprise, he agreed. Thad dialed the number, giddy with relief that his ordeal might be soon over.

Only to hear Joe Clark sniggering in the corner. The evil bastard had cut the phone cord before handing it to Thad. And although he was obviously furious, Thad knew that he was obviously furious, Thad knew that he had to play it smart. He pleaded with Joe to let him go, promising not to tell a soul and to cover up his injuries by saying that he'd had an accident, but it was no use. Joe Clark scoffed that nobody would ever believe him. But at least he seemed to be nice Joe today. The pair of them sat and watched TV in the living room for the rest of the morning, as ordinary teenage kids might while their parents were away. Except of course Thad's right leg was smashed a shit. Thad remembers how

he just kept praying a knock would come at the door and that it would be his dad coming to rescue him. But that never happened. It's so hard, isn't it? Because it's like, that could so easily have died in this. And we've obviously seen countless cases where this kind of thing happens. But when you have his story and his account of the grief, the fear, the trauma, the expectation, the hope of somebody coming to save him, of what to do next, of trying to constantly figure out a way out of this situation. It hits you so much harder than just when you have the body at the end. And you can only guess as to what that person went through.

Like to hear that story of telling you exactly what he went through, exactly what his thought process was. It just makes you realize how would you feel in that moment and what all of these other people have gone through? I mean, that is 13 years old. I can't believe the level of questions. he was asking Joe Clark to try and like get out of this situation asking him if he's done it before asking him why he's doing it instead of just begging to be let go because Thad realizes he needs to try and befriend this guy if he's going to find a way out of there and yeah that flip-flopping with Joe of being a nice guy one minute of breaking his fucking bones another I suppose again maybe that is more common than we know but we just don't get to hear the story from the survivor or from the victim

The only one I can think of is I'm never going to be able to find her name the woman who got Rodney Arcarla to pull over into a petrol station and managed to run and she said the same thing of like bargaining and not begging

but just sort of telling him that he hadn't done anything wrong and sort of taking that a prick but she's an adult woman actually was she I think she was about 1415 I think you're absolutely right. Like we quite rarely get to hear from people who've been through things like this and survived. I think what constantly astonishes me about the human brain is we are so hardwired to survive

that we can just come up with these things in the moment. Yeah. It's fascinating. And I think it's what you're saying. It's about, not about begging, not about pleading. It's that giving them an off-ramp, giving them a way out of this. But then obviously, you know, that's only going to work if they actually want a way out. Yeah.

And, yeah, Thad's dad doesn't show up, nobody comes to the door, nobody is coming to get him. The only movement was from Joe Clark repeatedly going outside to try and start his car, which was giving him trouble. As time went on, he grew irritable and agitated and soon enough, Thad saw that same dark look appear in Joe Clark's eye. the one that was there the night before. Clark carried Thad upstairs and into his bedroom, where he repeated the ordeal of the night before. Only this time, it was with Thad's left leg. Thad later recalled.

He twisted my left ankle until it broke. He kept twisting and twisting the skin like you'd twist a rubber band. Thad tried to fight back, swinging desperately at Joe's head and back, whilst the older boy sat on top of him to carry out this gruesome task. But Thad quickly realized that this just made Joe Clark more angry. Joe shoved a pillow onto Thad's face and growled that if he didn't stop fighting, he'd break his neck or back.

And Thad believed him. And we need to think too. If someone had already busted up both of our legs, you probably would. So Thad stopped fighting in a physical sense. But mentally, this 13-year-old boy never gave up. The latest torture session brought with it a new revelation. Joe Clark didn't just like breaking bones.

He also liked fixing them. He went from friend to foe to some twisted illusion of a doctor. After breaking this fresh set of bones, Joe went over to a dresser and retrieved a stash of elastic bandages and leg braces. After neatly trussing Thad up, he started grim experiments, getting Thad to stand up and try and walk. seeing what his broken body could take. At one point, the two of them were at the top of the stairs with a loose board.

That isn't sure if Joe kicked it out, or if it just gave way, but he tumbled all the way down and crashed onto his back at the bottom. I think this story is also a testament to how much the human body can take, because how you can have both of your legs broken, and, as we'll see, fall down multiple flights of stairs multiple times and not just be dead. Yeah. Is alarming.

And, yeah, the whole playing doctor thing will get more into, like, the specific little M.O. That Joe Clark has. He's such a unique character. This sort of breaking, fixing, friendly agitator. Like, he's all over the place. But yeah, very, very unusual. And I don't know. It only gets weirder.

Because then there were the socks. Joe Clark had hundreds of. brand spanking, new, blinding white pairs of socks stuffed in a drawer in his bedroom. And he would take these and place them on Thad's feet in layers, one after the other. Seemingly obsessed with lining the seams up perfectly until they were just right. When the ritual was complete, Joe seemed to finally calm down. But the respite never lasted for very long. because once the socks were in place

and the braces were strapped tight, Joe Clark would simply start the whole thing again. A psychiatrist named Dr. John Mayer later theorised the following. There was some childlike fascination with making Thad right so Joe could continue the torture. He had that captive audience for as long as he wanted

and the fun was in making him dysfunctional again. So, the cycle went on all Saturday, snapping and soothing, breaking and bandaging. And how Thad survived all of that, mentally, is pretty impressive. Yeah, it's very like, I mean, it's not Munchausen, obviously, because that's for a very specific aim of the caretaker getting attention from somebody outside of that scenario. So, like, what is going on here? It's very, very unusual. It's almost like, I guess a little bit how you would break a person, like in a Stockholm syndrome,

sense like you beat them but then you're the one that fixes them up there's that joke that Dave Chappelle tells about the pimp who's like how he breaks one of his you know one of his girls is basically beat her beat her beat her beat her and this is like a very funny joke it's better told by Dave Chappelle but then he's the one who puts her in the bath afterwards so her loyalties are still with him because it's kind it is how stockholm syndrome works because it's yes you're the person keeping me captive here. but you're also the one that turns up with food. You're also the one that turns up to give me company

and therefore I have this like bond building with youth because of that. I don't know. What is he trying to achieve here? I don't know. I was reading an article about Stockham syndrome the other day that basically says that we've got it wrong, that it's actually to do with survival rather than like, oh, you're the person who I need

because you're doing all of these things so therefore I can overlook that you're the one that's put me here in the first place. actually it's a survival technique of making them like you. Oh, yeah. Interesting. And is that kind of what Joe Clark is doing here? Like, I'm not saying he's not in control of his actions. He very clearly obviously is.

But he seems to have this like red mist that descends and this compulsion to break these bones, smash these bones, twist his legs until they break. And as we'll go on to see, there is also definitely a sexual element to it. but then there seems to be this strange like that psychiatrist describes like childlike need to make it right but again is that for his own benefit or is it for thad's benefit oh there's no way it's for that's benefit is it to make thad like him because he wants to hang out with that and like fucking watch

tv and shit like that i don't know it's a very very unusual story and maybe it's only so unusual and we're so like i'm so fixated on what's going on because we have the story from inside the house Yeah? Yeah, possibly. Yeah, I don't know. I really, really don't. But yeah, I don't think I've ever, I mean, as you say, it's so difficult to know whether, I'm sure we've covered similar things. It's just we don't have this side of the story. But I think we can absolutely all agree that little fad is made of steel. Even as his bones twisted and crumbled, he never cried. He didn't want to let Joe Clark see how scared he was. He just kept thinking about his family and imagining, how it would feel to go home to them. All through the torturing sessions, Joe Clark seemed to take a sick pleasure in watching the younger boy suffer. At one point, Thad recalled,

Clark even masturbated in front of him as he writhed in pain. During a lull in the violence, Thad heard Joe talking to someone from the kitchen. He strained to listen, desperately trying to figure out if there was somebody else in the house. But there wasn't.

so Thad realized that there must be a functioning phone down there, somewhere. And from that point on, Thad made it his mission to get to that phone if it killed him. Later that evening, Joe Clark announced that he was going out for the night and left Thad, freshly bruised and battered from another bone-breaking session. By now the adrenaline had worn off and Thad was in excruciating agony. His black and blue legs had swollen to the point. that his right ankle was the size of a softball and his thigh was as big as a basketball.

But Thad knew this was his only opportunity to get to that phone. So once he heard the car leaving the driveway, Thad dragged himself to the top of the stairs and stared down into the abyss. As district attorney Patricia Barrett later put it, Thad is a pretty straightforward kid and he didn't want to die. So he was willing to do whatever it took.

And in this case, that meant launching himself head first down the steps. The pain, according to Thad, was so intense that he blacked out multiple times as he inched through the living room and towards the kitchen. It took hours, but he pushed through. And Thad made it as far as the kitchen doorway, like it's some sort of fucking movie or something. He heard the sickening sound of the door opening. Joe Clark was home But this time he wasn't alone Joe Clark was with his girlfriend

Thad lay on the floor as silent as possible listening to the teenage lovebirds canoodling in the living room But once the girl had left Joe discovered Thad on the floor And his eyes bulged out of his head According to the 13-year-old He was shocked to see how close his victim had come to escaping And mumping was certain

He was pissed The red mist, certainly descended. Joe Clark dragged Thad upstairs and warned him that he would pay for trying to escape. Thad says that he took all of his anger out on him, twisting his ankles even more. But then came the familiar sock ritual and Joe calmed down again. He took Thad downstairs and together they watched a few films on the couch. Exhausted and weak with pain Thad eventually passed out and slept till the next day. But this was never going to be an easy Sunday morning.

By now, Thad said that his legs didn't even look like human legs, and the pain was so excruciating. He still can't describe it to this day. And Joe Clark seemed intent on punishing Thad for his near escape the night before. He took him upstairs again and resumed his campaign of torture this time, dialing up the sadism a notch. He started jumping on Thad's knees until they crunched and twisted completely around, like a feral child on a human bouncy castle.

Oh my God. It's just so, like, repugnant. I mean, oh. And, yeah, this little sock ritual that he uses to calm down, maybe it is all just a compulsion. I'm not going to say that Joe doesn't want to do it, but the first time he does it, the way he puts his hair in his hands

and, like, mumbles and seems distracted. I don't know. But then at points like this, he's absolutely relishing in the violence. Unusual. Yeah, I don't think my brain has the capacity to understand it. Through the waves of pain, all Thad could think about was that today was his brother's birthday, and he desperately wanted to be there.

But we imagine he wanted to be anywhere, other than where he actually was. Thad said the thoughts of his family were the thing that kept him going mentally, rather than just giving into the pain. He knew that he had to survive for their sake. And we've got a clip of him here. I survived because I wanted to be with my family. I didn't want to leave my family, and I know they wouldn't want to lose me. Yeah, Thad has done a lot of interviews,

and he actually has, like, a whole episode on I Survived, and it's well worth watching. Now that night, after the now familiar pattern of torture and mending sessions every few hours, Joe declared that he was going out again. But this time, he wasn't taking any chances with his slippery captive. So as soon as Joe heard, his girlfriend's car arriving in the driveway, He threw Thad in the bedroom closet and locked the door.

Trapped in the dark, Thad heard the car drive away and felt a sense of dread. He'd been a captive now for over 40 hours. He was in agonising pain and was going increasingly weak from dehydration. Thad knew in his gut that if he didn't get out of that closet, that he was going to die. And honestly, we feel like most people in this situation, not even wrongfully, would have probably put their hands up and just accepted that it was over. I can't say I wouldn't have just been like,

let's just lay down and have a little nap and hope I never wake up again. But not Thad Phillips. You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest, and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests,

but instead, in hospital rooms and doctor's offices. Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And each week on my podcast, you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries should be your new go-to weekly show.

Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad-free right now. Now, by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Thad scrambled desperately with his hands in the dark before he hit the jackpot, an old, heavy wooden electric guitar. Using all his might, he battered the door panel with it and was able to unlock the door. This time, there was no hesitation in what he had to do.

He hauled himself to the staircase, and he was. He chucked himself down it again. Like before, he passed out repeatedly from pain and fatigue, but he kept on shuffling. Finally, he made it to the kitchen and squinted in the darkness. And there it was. The phone hung on the wall in all its 90s retro glory, complete with a long twirly cord.

It upsets me that children now ask why we say hang up the phone. And we still do this. I know it's an audio format. my fingers to my ears and I put the fake phone down. You know what she did. Unless you were born after 2000. It may please listeners to know that the phone in our cover art is in my flat and it works. But this phone had another story to tell.

Its position and its cord meant that from the floor, Thad could jiggle the cord and make the phone come to him. And when it did with shaking hands, he typed the three. crucial numbers for his survival. 9-1-1. Thad was able to give the police enough information for them to realise exactly where he was. So after an almost 48-hour ordeal, Thad Phillips finally heard the words

he'd been dying to hear. We're on our way. And I cannot even begin to imagine the fucking relief you would feel to hear that. My God. And the police knew all too well that Joe Clark was a nasty piece of work from his various run-ins with authorities over the years. But what they found at his house shocked even the most seasoned detective.

They burst in to find Thad clinging to life. His legs utterly mangled and unrecognizable. On the audio footage of the rescue, he's that. you, Sergeant John Hansen can be heard saying, I can't believe the kid busted out there. Can't believe he's still alive. Thad was rushed to St. Clair Hospital, where he was reunited with his parents.

The paramedics told Thad that if he hadn't been found, he would have died within two hours from all the internal blood that was pulling in his legs. That evening, Joe Clark was arrested in a local bar, and his first words to the officers were ones of surprise, saying, Oh, he's still alive? Yes, he was. Against the odds, Thad Phillips had survived a horrendous ordeal at the hands of a notorious bully who was now behind bars.

Thad's dad Don was certain that this had to have been a one-time freak thing, but unfortunately that was wishful thinking. As soon as he could speak, Thad told his dad what Joe had said about other victims. There was a boy he said he'd shot whilst living in Chicago when he was younger. There was another boy he claimed to have paralysed from the waist down before dumping him on his back doorstep. Those two alleged victims were nameless to Thad. Either Joe hadn't told him their names or he'd forgotten them. Police could never actually verify those claims either,

so it's unclear whether Joe was just bullshitting or whether it was actually true. Thad did remember the name of one victim, who Joe said hadn't made it out alive. A boy named Chris from Baravu. Thad wasn't sure but he knew the boy's surname began with an S and when his dad flipped through the phone book and got to Steiner Thad felt a jolt of recognition that was him

that was the boy who had died before him new to town the name Chris Steiner meant little to the newly relocated Phillips family but it sent shockwaves through the rest of the community since Chris's death over a year ago Joe Clark's name had always been floated around. And it was no surprise to Chris's mum, Kathy Steiner, who told the press, This is the one I always figured to be responsible for Christian's death. Kathy were revealed that three days before Chris went missing,

Joe Clark had been over at their house, chatting with Chris and playing Paul. Though Joe Clark was a lot older, Chris told her that he thought he'd found a new friend. and Kathy had one more chilling bombshell. On the night Chris disappeared, Joe Clark had actually called him and asked him to go somewhere with him. Chris had said no. And that was the last person outside of his family

who ever spoke to Chris. But it was all circumstantial. So somehow, Joe had escaped any real interrogation at the time about what had happened to Chris. Now, with that's claims, Gathy Steiner's maternal instinct was finally being listened to. It's emerged that back in 1994, a full autopsy was never actually done on Chris's body. Once they'd established that he'd died from drowning,

it seemed like the authorities just packed it up and called it a day. Boy goes in water, boy drowns, boy dead, close off, book. And while Chris's badly decomposed body didn't appear to have any visible injuries other than what was expected, from a week in the river, no x-rays were ever taken. Chris's body was exhumed and a more in-depth autopsy was conducted. And then came a sickening discovery. Chris's legs were broken in four places, with, and this is a quote,

almost identical mechanisms of injury, to Thad Phillips. Chris's bones had been twisted, snapped and cracked in exactly the same way. suddenly the reason why Chris had drowned was painfully obvious he'd been thrown into the water and in that condition there was absolutely no way he could have swum to safety and that made Joe Clark not just a torturer

but a murderer too but first Joe Clark had to face justice for what he'd put Thad through in July 1995 so he was charged with attempted first-degree murder causing great bodily harm to a child, causing mental harm to a child, child enticement, and mayhem. Now, mayhem might sound like fun in games, but actually it refers to the following. The criminal act of disabling, disfiguring, or cutting off, or making useless, one of the members,

i.e. a leg, arm, hand, foot, eye of another, either intentionally or in a fight called maiming. So there you go. Two other charges of burglary and exposing a sex organ to a child were dismissed. Joe entered no contest, please, in all of the charges. Meaning that while he wasn't admitting any guilt, he accepted that the prosecution had enough to convict him. But his defence team argued that Joe was mentally ill and therefore less culpable. He reportedly couldn't remember torturing that

and suffered from memory lapses and a range of mental issues that affected his daily life. The trial which kicked off on the 5th of September 1995 was basically intended to determine whether this was total bollocks or not. Defence lawyer Mark Frank argued that Joe Clark had an abnormal condition of the mind that affects mental and emotional processes. He pointed to Joe's convenient amnesia of any events from the weekend as proof. And he had the perfect excuse for why Joe shouldn't be considered responsible for anything he did to Thad. a dirt bike incident on June 1993

that had apparently changed Joe Clark's entire personality. His hair freshly buzzed, Joe showed the jury a large scar above his ear from where he had allegedly had brain surgery after the accident. His mum, who's called Bertha, told the court that Joe had a blood clot the size of a lemon removed from his skull. Mark Frank claimed that Joe Clark became a different person after that.

with what he called a potpourri of ailments which is a very weird thing to say but that pop-pourri included hallucinations delusions and suicidal impulses how relaxing yes I'm so glad we got over potpourri as a nation though my god yeah it died a bit of a death didn't it

yeah and never smelled nice now taking its place re-diffuses which I just can't get on board with really I feel like I get given a lot of them as gifts And I put them in place But I'm like, I can't smell it No, and I just forget they're there I forget to turn them over

Like when you turn them over You can smell it for like a hot second You know This what I mean And I've got not enough plug switches For all those plug in glade I'm like Oh no I don't fuck with Glade

I've never fucked with Glade I've fucking fancy You got that many plug switches We've just done the extension I'm like we did not put enough plugs in here There are literally not enough sockets in this house So we can't have one Just for fucking Glade

I think this is a very interesting Like obviously the defence lawyer doesn't have loads to go on, but I just think that nobody is going to do what Joe Clark did and be mentally fine. So I just think it's a bit of an odd argument to say that you're less culpable because your brain's broken. Like obviously your brain's broken. Otherwise you wouldn't have done it.

Like we were talking about that endless empathy thing the other day because they were abused. Like, it's fine. No, it's not. It's not fine. They still did the thing. Nobody does those things for no reason. Nobody is completely compass mentors and completely

mentally fine and does things like this. It doesn't happen. I think it actually perpetuates this quite dangerous idea that there are people who are just built enormously different to us and that's the only reason

that they can do these things. And I just think it's a very odd place that we've come to. Like obviously he's mentally ill. Obviously that doesn't mean He's less culpable for what he did, my opinion. No, I agree. I agree with you.

And I just think as a society, we're heading in this weird route of like, oh, well, you know, look how fucked up his life was. Look how that's a big fucking clot in his head. Like so. He fucking knew what he was doing. He hid it. He murdered another child and then dumped his body in the fucking river, not even body, dumped him while he was alive in the river.

And then managed to keep that a secret for a whole year before he took another child and was going to do exactly the same thing to him. When the police turned up, he says, are we still alive then? So he knows the consequences of what he's doing. I don't know. I just couldn't get less. You know.

Couldn't get less. I'm not saying that like anyone was particularly arguing for Joe Clark to be let off with any real sincerities. But you see it. Oh yeah, we see it all the time. But like we also have a list as long as anyone's arm of traumatic head injuries doing this to people. This is also true.

And Joe's parents also fell in line with the popery of ailments argument. Bertha explained that she'd adopted Joe as an infant from a doper mother who injected drugs while she was pregnant with Joe. But it wasn't until after his accident aged 16 that she began to feel like there was something terribly wrong with him as a result of his brain injury. And as I said, that happens. Bertha claimed that Joe,

had told her that he saw an imaginary man in their barn and that he had swelling in his head just a day before he kidnapped Thad Phillips. I could believe it. I can totally believe it. What the fuck do you do if your kid bangs his head? Just keep a real good eye on him. Yeah.

And don't be horrible to them. No. Positive only. Only. They don't like it when you are not nice to them. Yeah. They do not respond well to them. punishment. Carrot only, no stick.

But despite what we're saying, maybe, you know, this had the opportunity to sound a bit compelling to the jury. Well, enter Soak County District Attorney Patricia Barrett, who was about to blow the accident defence out of the murky legal water. She showed the court medical records that disproved the exaggerated claims about the extent of Joe Clark's brain bleed, calling out his mum bertha for lying about the size of the clot that he allegedly had removed. On top of that, Barrett had receipts, proving that Joe's behavior had been an issue way before he fell off that dirt bike. In 1992, he reportedly made a death threat to a teacher and was involved in multiple well-documented incidents of aggression towards other

students at school. She even dragged out Joe's diaries dating back to 1982, indicating serious issues at home and school from an early age. Damingly, though his parents were insisting Joe needed psychological help now, they had made no attempts to seek this in the past, despite all of his problematic behaviour. And Patricia Barrett had another smoking gun up her sleeve. A handwritten note found in Joe Clark's bedroom listing the names of 18 local boys under different headings, like get to now, can wait.

and Leg Thing. Chris Stein and Thad Phillips were not on that list, which was thought to have been written between Chris's death and Thad moving to town. The list totally annihilated the idea that Joe Clark wasn't in control of his actions, instead indicating cold-blooded planning. And it brought the chilling realization that Thad's resilience in surviving his ordeal had saved at least eight other boys from suffering the leg thing and possibly death. Inside the same notebook, Joe had drawn sketches of house interiors in the local area.

A picture began to form of a calculated stalker who had set his sights on younger boys like Thad and was just waiting for his opportunity to abduct them from their homes. I don't know why, but whenever I imagine Joe Clark, I picture the bully from Hey Arnold. Yeah. Yeah. He's always described as having a big head as well. Mm-hmm. So as if all this wasn't enough, Patricia Barrett had a star witness, Thad himself. He was at the start of a long and brutal road to recovery,

already undergoing multiple surgeries on his shattered legs. The surgeon compared Thad's injuries to as if he'd been in a serious car accident. But Thad, as always, came out fighting. He wanted to testify against Joe Clark. He said he couldn't wait to get up there and wasn't scared at all to face his attacker again. On the witness stand in crutches, Thad retold his horrifying ordeal in a calm and matter-of-fact way

that left the courtroom in shock and awe at his strength. Psychiatrist Patricia Jens said that she considered his testimony truthful in all respects. Joe Clark had lured Thad Phillips in with his love of baseball. Now Thad's testimony was a damning home run. But the question wasn't if Joe had done these heinous things to Thad. It was whether he was responsible for his actions. Running out of cards to play defence lawyer, Mark Frank, tried to bamboozle the jury with psychology for dummies claims

about Joe's memory loss and alleged split personalities. Insisting that there were two Mr Clarks, hinting at a evil twin who committed the crimes while Joe was in an out-of-control state. But Frank couldn't produce even hoarse. one expert to support these claims. All of the multiple psychologists who assessed Joe Clark scoffed at Frank's desperate attempts to throw the blame from his client insisting that Joe was mentally competent. Psychiatrist Patricia Jens called Joe's so-called memory loss selective and dismissed the claim that he

couldn't read, with evidence of Joe's reading scores above the 10th grade level. Neuropsychologist Anne Martell accused Joe of, faking the whole thing, saying that he pretended to have symptoms that even real mental patients don't have on almost every psych test that he took. And the trial even got a celebrity cameo, kind of, from renowned Dharma Doctor Park Dietz. Dietz almost always appears in court as a witness for the prosecution, and I have to say, I'm always a tad suspicious of experts who only ever appear for either the prosecution or the defence. Same.

It just makes them look like hired guns. And if the name Park Diet sounds familiar to you, it's because he, of course, also embroiled himself in some pretty major controversy due to his false testimony in the trial of Andrea Yates, where he claimed that there was a Law and Order episode, which exactly resembled Yates' murders that must have inspired her, blah, blah, blah, blah. when in reality no such episode ever existed. Deeds later admitted to it

saying it was a mistake citing confusion between real cases and fictionalised versions which a court acknowledged as grounds for a new trial for Andrea. And maybe it was a mistake, but his error raised some serious questions about the reliability of expert testimony in high-profile legal cases. Certainly from him.

Yes. Yes. Anyway. I think here, whatever Park Dietz has done, I do agree with him. He slammed Joe for lying about, quote, every kind of hallucination known to man. Deets called Joe Clark a sexual sadist, who got his kicks from torturing young boys like that,

and called the white sock thing another sexual fetish to boot. At this point, the usually impassive Joe Clark started blinking a lot and rocking back and forth. But regardless of what motivated him, the experts all agreed on the key facts. One, Joe's 1993 accident had no meaningful impact on his behavioural personality. And two, he was mentally competent enough to face justice for his actions. And after only an hour of deliberation,

the jury declared unanimously that Joe Clark did not suffer from mental disease or defect. Judge Virginia Woolf, which is pretty amazing, then found Joe Clark guilty. on all charges against Thad Phillips and sentenced him to 100 years in prison. Even after the sentencing, it still wasn't over. Within two days of the verdict, DA Mark Bennett of neighbouring Columbia County

declared that he was filing charges against Joe Clark for the Chris Steiner murder. And Thad was game to testify once again. But in October 1996, a 15-year-old called Michael Hubish came to Thad's door and shot him twice in the back with a hunting rifle. Honestly, it is like, when I read that, I was like, are you fucking serious?

This kid protect him. Yeah, right. My God. I cannot catch a break. Turned out that Hubish was apparently a friend of Joe Clark who was not happy with Thad Phillips for testifying against his buddy at the first trial

and was determined to silence him. incidentally the same guy would be convicted of the sexual assault of an underage girl in 2018 so you know birds of a feather etc miraculously thad survived again and went ahead with his testimony at the Steiner trial in 1997 i love thad phillips so much but he could do the aerial hoop lead detective kevin heimel praised thad as a true hero for having the strength to testify not one but twice about such a traumatic ordeal. And it's safe to say that Thad was the glue that held the whole case together. His powerful testimony, along with the forensic comparison of his injuries with Chris Steiner's X-rays, was enough to convince the jury that Joe Clark had attacked both of them. Joe Clark's parents tried to give him an alibi by insisting that he was asleep in his bedroom

at home on the night that Chris went missing, and that they absolutely would have noticed if he'd gone out. But the prosecutor cast heavy doubt on the Clark's reliability by pointing to evidence of their heavy drinking as well as multiple witnesses saying Joe often snuck out at night. Lawyer Mark Frank tried to weakly insist that Thad and Chris's identical injuries wasn't enough evidence of a signature, but it was too little too late. What was left of Joe Clark's credibility had snapped like the bones that he broke. On the 8th of November 1997, Judge James Everson found Joseph Clark guilty of first-degree murder, Mayhem, a great harm to a child, in the case of Christian Steiner.

He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder charge, plus another 60 years for the charges of mayhem and child harm. This sentence was to run concurrently with the hundred years he'd already racked up for his torturing of Thadius Phillips. Judge Everson declared he couldn't imagine a more extreme or sadistic manner of taking the life of another person, saying there was no question in his mind of Joe Clark's guilt. Joe Clark actually snapped back, saying, I hope you know you're condemning an innocent person.

And his parents called it a witch hunt and insisted that their son was a scapegoat. Of what? I know. Dad Phillips has found it in their fucking house. But the kids of Baraboo breathed a big old sigh of relief because the bonebreaker was finally taking his dark sideshow act behind bars for a long time. Joe Clark was imprisoned at the Maximum Security Green Bay Correctional Institution

where he remains to this day, still insisting that he's innocent to anyone who'll listen. Like every man in Shawshank. In October 1997, Thad Phillips's family filed a sister civil lawsuit against Joe Clark seeking compensation, not just for Thad's devastating injuries, but for the emotional toll and medical expenses that impacted their whole family. They were backed by hotshot Milwaukee lawyer, Thomas Jacobson, famous for representing the loved ones of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's victims. Jacobson said that the lawsuit had another

purpose, to stop Joe Clark from ever cashing in on his grizzly bonebreaker legacy. The court ended up ordering Joe Clark to pay $31,000 in medical damages, 6 million in compensatory damages and a whopping 21 million in punitive damages. Obviously, there's no way in hell that Joe Clark could afford that. The only way he would be able to pay for anything at all, ironically, would be by selling his story. So while Thad's bones slowly stitched back together and he grew up and raised a family of his own, he never saw a single dime of that settlement. Thad's now in his 40s and still walks with a slight limp from the trauma that he suffered.

And when she found out that Thad never saw any of that cash, a family friend of the Philipses named Olga Johnson was stunned. And she set up a GoFundMe page in 2023 to repay the true hero of Baraboo. As Olga puts it, if not for Thad Phillips, Joe Clark would have continued to kill our community's children. So far, the page has raised just over $19,000, still a hell of a long way from its ambitious goal of $100,000, and nowhere near the amount that Thad was promised by the courts. So let's make a donation, Hannah, and we're also going to share the link to that in our episode notes

because I just think, fucking hell, having both your legs snapped repeatedly by a maniac and then being shot twice, with a hunting rifle and still having the nerve which he didn't have to do for Christina to go and testify in court to get justice for that other boy yeah what other word is there than hero

go with that I don't think there is another word and next week it's going to be less bone breaky more ghosty I hope so more videoy and maybe we'll get attacked by dogs

maybe stay tuned guys so yes absolutely the next two weeks episodes will be released as usual wherever you listen to your podcast but if you would like to watch the video then don't say i didn't want you if you miss out you only have yourself to blame go watch him on youtube where you can really enjoy whatever the fuck happens goodbye bye Thank you.