Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Murder of Maddie Clifton

Transcript

The Murder of Maddie Clifton · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Life has a way of creating incredible things. The beautiful
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: views from the top of some of the world's most
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: tallest mountains, the creatures that survive in the deepest parts
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of the ocean, and the incredible intelligent minds within our
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: own species. Sometimes, though, the most beautiful things on Earth,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: can turn incredibly dark in the blink of an eye,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and humans are certainly not immune or an exception to this.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Today we talk about the disturbing case of Mattie Clifton.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: Her life was filled with endless possibilities, but in an
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: instant it would all come to an end in one
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: of the most unbelievable ways possible. Mattie was only eight
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: years old, and how her story unfolds will, without a doubt,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: break your heart.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben and I'm Nicole, and you're listening to
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast. Warning.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: The following podcast material intend more mature audience. Listener discretion advised.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I'm warning you right now. It's rough. It's a rough case.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've warned me a few times here.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Well I should warn everyone else. How's it going? This case?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Heads up, it's a rough one and deals with children.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So heads up on.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: That real quick view the listener discretion. Listener discretion is advice,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and it's not our fault. It's not This was request
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: by our patrons. Yes, they're they're glorious people, but they
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: like they like their heavy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: True crime well, and they want Maddie's story to be told.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: That's true, so they wanted us to help tell her story.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: So that's what we're doing today. We actually put it
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: to a vote over there, We're like, what do you
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: guys want to listen to? We got a bunch of requests.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: We took the top liked requests put it to a vote.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: In the case of Maddie, Clifton went.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: Out, Yeah, I honestly loved letting them pick.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: It was actually fun.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's actually I don't know. It makes me feel good.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: And then we should takes the pressure off us try
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: to find cases. Lots of them know true crime better
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: than us.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: That's true. It's it's crazy how many people out there
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: who listen to true crime are so knowledgeable on it,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: so knowledgeable, like they put us to shame, it seems like.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: But a lot of them, because I think they're listening
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: to podcasts the majority of their day at work and stuff.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: That's right. So they learn a lot and they're just
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: they're always hearing it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: That's true. It's very true. Yeah. Well, maybe we'll head
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: over after this and we'll put up another pole. Yeah,
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: what the next case should be? So if you want
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: to have any say in that, head over to our
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Patreon link down below. All our links down below in
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: the description too. So, and speaking of Patreon, we need
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: to thank the patrons that signed up last week.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: We have some newbies to think.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: We do so, Samantha knofft Heidi Torresen. There's some accents
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: on that last name, so I really don't know if
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I got it right, but I'm really hoping I did.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: Britney morassty Judy Gull and wait for it, Taco Taco.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm really not thinking that's a real name, but.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: You never know. That would be a sweet name.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I'm not judging. I'm just I don't think it's the
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: most common.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we're we're big fans of talk.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Oh man, I love tacos. I'm talking like real Mexican tacos.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I'm talking American American eyed tacos, like just tacos. Ye,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: tacos are the ship.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: We try to do taco Tuesday, but it doesn't always happen.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: Tonight we had salmon and it's Tuesday, so.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: We had rice and salmon Tuesday.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: We failed.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Let's have taco Wednesday.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: Maybe there you go? There you go?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, rough case. Before we get into that, the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: bad news of that, I have one more thing I
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: want to talk about.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's do it.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: The Wicked Box.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, all of our pieces have finally.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Arrived, all but one technically.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Oh I thought we had everything there.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Well, we do, but we don't. So we're gonna be
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: doing two Wicked Box giveaways here coming soon, so pay
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: attention for that.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, I think I know what you're talking about.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Here and what we're gonna do. We'll be posting about
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: it on our social media, so if you want information,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: follow us there. But there's one thing. We're gonna give
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: it all away. You'll go through the giveaway process, you'll
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: win it. Once you win, then we'll request you for
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: like a your shirt size. We'll order in a shirt,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: add the shirt into the box, then we'll ship it out.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: So it might be a little excess shipping time. We
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: might be waiting a while, but that's only because you
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: were ordering an awesome Sure. Yeah, we're ordering in a shirt.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: It's getting to us, then we pack it, then we
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: ship it out, so we have to wait for shipping
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: before we can ship exactly double shipping. It sucks.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: But Red Bubble isn't usually too bad though they're not.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: They're not. So yeah, that's a thing that's happening. If
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: you want information, fuck, go to the socials. You'll see
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: it all. Yeah, but without further ado, let's get into Maddie's.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I think we should. Let's do it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: And as I mentioned, this does deal with children, so forewarned. Okay,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: and it's rough. It's rough. I had to take a
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: little extra time while researching this case because.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, we are Daylight. We apologize for that.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Yes, so sometimes it happens. But I mean, we are
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: an independent podcast, so sometimes it happens. We don't have
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a big budget studio or anything.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: We're in our tiny, hor frigging tiny ELM studio.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: On our kitchen counter and I dog at our feet.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: And I'm looking at a ringing, messy kitchen. Then I
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: need to probably do the dishes.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: After this, you left the rice vinegar out.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: I really did. I have a bad habit of that.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I leave shit out all the time.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: You do.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Ben has to like clean up after me in that aspect,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: But I clean up after you in a lot of aspect.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. We that's married implement each other. Well.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hashtag I think is I'm always picking up dirty
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: clothes right off the floor, right in front of the hand.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Malarky, Yeah, malarkey will Okay, if you pick him up
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: off the floor in front of the hamper, that's because
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: I'm starting a pile for me to wash. I'm starting
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: a load for me to wash.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Well, that's the point of the hamper.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's mixed in with all your clothes, and
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I don't have to like dump it out and dig
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: through it and close because I'm going to wash him
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: wrong and shrink something.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Let's get going here.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: This is the wicked and grim married life. God. Okay.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: On to Maddie Clifton So. Maddie was born on July seventeenth,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. She was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and she
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: was born a true nineties kid. At the age of eight,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: her favorite things were to lay piano in basketball and
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: hang out with her eleven year old big sister Jessica.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: The girls were best friends. Sometimes they just hang out
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: together and watch movies or TV, where Jessica said that
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Maddie always rooted for the underdog or like the kind
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of ugly kind of character. Jessica at one point in
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: an interview said, I quote she'd root for the scary
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: people or scary things because she didn't like the idea
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of people or things feeling lonely or being isolated.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, we're a minute it and I'm already out.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Right coming from a child.
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: And also I didn't realize she had a sister that
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: was her best friend. Good God, Yeah, okay, So but.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: More than that, more than just TV. One of the
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: things that Maddie just couldn't get enough of was playing outside.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: The true nineties kid right. The Clifton family lived in
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a small, tight knit community where the neighborhood kids all
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: played together at the end of a cul de sac.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So on November third, nineteen ninety eight, Maddie came home
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: from school. It was just like any other day. She
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: was ready and rare into go oldside, play, go do
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: her thing. She did her piano practice and almost waited
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: right in the front doorstep for a mom to get home.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Her mom, Sheila, and kind of let her go play,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: like allow her to go, right, because I mean you
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: got get the parents permissions sometimes.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Right, And she sounds like a busy little girl.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Oh definitely, I mean gets home piano practice, ready to go,
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: like do sports and shit outside.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah awesome.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: So now Sheila was usually home by the time her
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: two daughters were off from school, but this day was
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: apparently election day, and she got had gone off to
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: cast her vote before coming home, so on and so forth. Right, Okay,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: so by the time she did get home, Maddie basically
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: burst through the front door, said hello, told her mother
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: she was going to go play with the other kids,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: and then she'd be back by dinner time. Like it
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: was a whole rush, like, Hi, Mom'm gonna gouble.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: He was like bursting at the seams.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: She was so excited to go play. Oh my gosh,
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and her mom. You know, when your kid's doing that,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: it's you can't help but laugh at it, you know, sure,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: go ahead, have fun, right, Yeah, typical kid, typical day.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Well, the kids just grow up so fast. You got
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: to do keep them, like, have them have their childhood
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: as long as they can. That's really sweet and peer and.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like some kids these days are almost robbed
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of their childhood nowadays with too many video games and.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: Stuff electronics, which it could.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Just be a generational gap in my opinion. I don't know,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: but there's there's something about that nostalgia and just running
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: outside and playing. I know, for me, when I was
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: a kid, it was I'd run home, get on my bike,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: and then I'd bike down the road and meet my
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: friends at the creek and we play at the creek
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: for like an hour, and I'd always always, I always
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: thought I was being clever, but I would stay like
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: an extra half an hour. My parents would give me
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: trouble for being late, but I would turn my watch
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: back and say.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: Oh, are you serious.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I did it all the time.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I don't think i'd I knew this.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I did it all the time. Clearly they knew
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: I was fucking with my watch.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: But oh my gosh, that is freaking hilarious.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So, after Maddie went out to go play, she
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: was later seen hitting golf balls a little further down
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: the street with one of the neighbors before she said
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that she needed to go pick up some more and
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: headed back towards her house to pick up some more
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: of these golf balls. Okay, but that was the last
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: place anyone could put her that evening. She wasn't seen
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: anywhere else.
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: It was just her heading back to her house to
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: get more golf balls.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: Correct, Oh my gosh. Okay, So it was by five o'clock.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Maddie still hadn't come back home for dinner, so her mom, Sheila,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: was out there calling Maddie and she asked Jessica, Hey,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: have you seen Maddie, And Jessica was like, no, I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: haven't seen her out there. I haven't seen her for
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: a while. Didn't realize she was still out there. I
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: thought she'd come home.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: And as a parent, your freakin heart just sinks to
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: the goddamn ground.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly though I don't think she was panicking just yet.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Quite yet, but you're probably you're starting.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: So she realized that no one has really seen Maddie.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: She's starting to ask around, and that's when that nott
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: starts to build up. She starts knocking on doors asking
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: people if they see Maddie. No one has seen her,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: so eventually she called the police and all hell broke
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: loose on the usually quiet street in Jacksonville.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that just gave me goose bumps.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hate this. Before the police were called, it kind
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: of started out with just some some of the neighbors
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: kind of looking around the neighborhood calling hey, Maddie, Maddie,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Yeah, But it was by about
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: six thirty three pm that people started getting more and
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: more in the streets and by the time she called
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the police.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: And eventually from just some of the people at the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: end of the cul de sac and police, the few
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: people it started out as started turning into almost hundreds
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: good of people searching.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: See that kind of thing does It just kind of
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: has a light that there's humans can be good, Like
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: they can be good. That's true, right, That's just a
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: lot of times we're just talking about how shitty some
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: people are, and there's a lot of shitty people out there.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: But then when it comes to a child missing and
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: like hundreds of people are appearing and helping and what
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: can I do? Like, that's good?
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: It is. It's always nice to see, especially when it's
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I like it, when it's not a tight knit community
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: come together for something. I mean, not to get me
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: wrong here, Like a tight knit community coming together for
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: something is great. But it's when there's differences and people
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: don't get along and they put those differences aside for something,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that's when it's truly.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: The greater good exactly. Yeah.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: So, just like I talked in the intro of this,
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: there's some amazing things in this world. But unfortunately with
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: good must come evil. There's a flip side of the coin.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: With light there's dark. There's also not so good things
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: in this world. Yes, So everyone was beginning to look
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: for Maddie as the sun was setting. Her older sister
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Jessica and a neighborhood boy named John Phillips were even
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: riding their bike through the streets screaming Mattie's name in
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a desperate attempt to find her. Even their grouchy, drunken neighbor,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Steve Phillips and his family had gotten to work, Steve
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: being Joshua's father. Okay, people were searching the area as
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the light went out. Police were around with flashlights, they
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: were handing out flyers. The FBI even eventually got involved.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: The National Guard even eventually sent in troops to walk
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: through sewer systems even looking for Maddie over the coming days.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Holy so good. Yeah, but also like this doesn't seem
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: like this is out of her character, Like I don't
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: think she just went missing, No, out of the blue
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: like this.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: No, definitely not. And everyone knew this because those hours
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: turned into days and still know Maddie. Her family was
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: worried to the corps, just begging for their daughter to
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: be returned home safely, because the assumption was she was taken. Yeah. Yeah,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: So the family worked around the clock. They even began
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: living with police officers in their house and the press
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: of course right outside their front door. They constantly did
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: press interviews in hopes that they could say something that
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: would get Maddie found, maybe something that would have someone
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: come forward. And there was even a reward of one
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars that went up for anyone who could
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: provide information that would lead to Maddie's safe return home.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Wow, that is a good reward. It is really good
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: to just like have that. I mean, I don't think
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: those rewards always necessarily come from the family.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: No, I don't think this one. Yeah did, if I'm
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: being honest.
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Because I think lots of times. It's coming from the
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: authorities as well.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Right, yeah, but even still with the reward, there was nothing.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: No one came forward, They had no idea where she was.
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: Jeez.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Holy. And it would be on November tenth, when Clifton's
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: were wrapping up another interview with the press that they
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: were notified they found Maddie.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: Okay, And how many days was this?
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Six days?
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: Six days, holy, six days of pagony and they found
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: Maddie Okay, found how was she?
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Well to give the story and how Maddie was found,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: We're gonna start talking about Melissa Phillips, Okay, the wife
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of that drunken neighbor. Drunken, grouchy neighbor guy, right.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Okay, the family went out looking still, came out and helped.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Melissa came bursting out her front door, panic stricken
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and shaking. She raced to one of the officers at
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: the Clifton's house across the road, not really able to
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: say anything, only kind of really able to indicate that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: they should follow her, but no one was ready for
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: what Melissa had to show them.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: Okay, my goosuns are for me again. Holy shit.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: The officer quickly called for backup. And followed the hysterical
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: woman into her house.
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: Why immediately a smell hit them in the phone.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: And the smell made their stomachs turn a smell many
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: officers and investigators know all too well. Yeah, okay, the
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: smell of rot and the smell of death.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: Shit, yeah, okay, but maybe okay, I'm still just waiting here.
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: I think I don't know.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Just keep going here, okay. Melissa took them into a
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: bedroom and pointed at something. She couldn't speak, and she
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: refused to enter the bedroom. She could only point at
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the bedframe through the door of the bedroom. She was
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: pointing at a small white sock on a child's foot
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: sticking out from under the bedframe.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: No.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: In a matter of seconds, the house was swarming with officers,
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: and together they lifted the mattress off the bedframe, revealing
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the rotting body stuffed inside the bedframe.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: It was Maddie the fuck yeap, Holy shit, I don't
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: even know what to say.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: It's rough.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Okay, where was her body found? Sorry?
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Stuffed? It's kind of hard to describe. I'm under a
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: bed it was under okay, because I'm going to talk
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: about this here shortly, it's a waterbed. Oh so the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: waterbed is kind of like boxed in, so you kind
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of have to almost lift up the mattress, kind of
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: pull apart the bed frame to get under this section
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: of the bed that's closed off.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: Holy shit.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And that's where Maddie was found.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Okay, And judging by how hysterical the mother was, I'm
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: assuming this was news to her, definitely.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Holy. Now, when they revealed Maddie's body, she was nude
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: from the waist down and had clearly been stabbed multipow times.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Okay, and holy shit, this is I'm just processing this.
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: This was across the fucking street.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: I'm processing this very slowly. I'm sorry, but sh okay, sorry, yeah,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: she was. I might interrupt again because I'm just like,
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: my brain is very slow to process this.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: She was across the street this whole time, these past
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: six days, with everyone searching, with news with police, she
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was there.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't long after being discovered that the Cliftons
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: were notified and they were told that she had been
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: found right across the street from her home.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: In fact, they were just finishing up that interview.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: For TV when they were notified.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, I can't even imagine, like just then, must have
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: just been ill, like just sick to their freaking stuff.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: There's no way I can even begin to process the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: thoughts going in their head. No, the thoughts even of Melissa,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: who found Maddie in her home. Yeah, so this.
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: When I'm sure it was heavy on her urt big
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: time too. I think this was happening across the fucking street.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, So where's your mind going with this? What
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: do you think happened? Well?
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Who lives in this house? Am I allowed to ask? That?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: There's a family of three, the mother, the father, the son.
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: The son was the one who was out biking with Jessica,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: Maddie's sister, looking for Mattie.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: That evening, and then and the dad was out there
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: looking as well.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: The dad was out there, he's the grumpy drunk, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the mother was out there as well. All three were searching.
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Am I even going to be able to guess what happened? Like,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I don't freaking know, This isn't any sense.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Well, let's not put you in that position.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Then let's move forward, okay, because I might what if
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I guessed something worse or let's yeah, let's just go on.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: Okay. Well, Melissa, the one who brought police into her
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: home revealing Maddie Okay, had calmed down enough, managed to
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: calm down enough to explain what had happened to the police.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: She told them that she had been cleaning her son's
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: room while he was at school. Okay, the room.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: Oh shit, I am really slow tonight.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: Sorry, it's all good now. Her son's name was Joshua Phillips,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: the same boy, like I said, who had helped search
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: riding his bike through the neighborhood the same night Mattie
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: was missing, went missing now. Josh Joshua was born March seventeenth,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, making him fourteen years old. He was
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, but he and his family had
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: moved to Jacksonville in the early nineties. Joshua was known
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: for being a bit of a quiet kid. Not really
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: like awkward, just kind of quiet. He was easily able
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to make friends, kind of fit in wherever he went.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Sort of thing, but little on the quiet side. But
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: when he did decide to speak up, he usually did
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: have something that would make both adults and children laugh.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: He was kind of like a funny, funny, outgoing kid,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: but kind of almost chose to be quiet. It seemed like, okay,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So maybe it was a sense of humor. But for
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: whatever reason, he and eleven year old Jessica were best friends.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Jessica was Mattie's sister, or they were really good friends.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Whether they were best friends or not is hard to describe,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: but they were really close and really good friends. So
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: outside of her family, Jessica didn't have a whole lot
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: of friends. It was mostly just her sister and Joshua,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the two of them, Joshua and Jessica spent a lot
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: of time together, usually outside playing on the streets, you know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood or outside the Clifton's house. Now, neither
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: of Maddie's parents thought there was anything really strange going on.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: There is a little bit more about dynamic that I've
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: heard of. There being some incidents where they got a
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: little bit uncomfortable and they told him like, yeah, you
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: can't be hanging around anymore. Apparently he stole a picture
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: out of her bedroom or something, and he had a
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: bit of a crush on Jessica. Maybe, oh boy, I see.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: None of that has really been proven so I don't
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: really want to touch.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: On that too much, but the possibility is there.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: The possibility is definitely there, Okay. Yeah, And they were
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: also just that Jessica had actually found a friend too,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: because she, like I said, didn't really have much for
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: friends at school.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean it's right in the neighborhood too. They
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: can kind of keep an eye on it.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Exactly exactly. He was a little bit older, she being
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: eleven and he being fourteen, but you know, still, like
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you say, you can keep an eye on it. That's okay,
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: And it didn't really matter to them like that. Joshua
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: was a bit quiet, especially because they knew that maybe
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: he had reasons for not wanting to draw attentions to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: himself because his father. His father plays a very large
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: dynamic in the story.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Actually, so you said that his father was like an alcoholic.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: Yes, Steve Phillips. He was a very strict individual and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a bit of a drunk. The stories on his substance
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: consumption again also varies, but some reports say that he
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: took a bit of aggression out on his wife and
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: his teenage side Joshua. Again, reports do vary, but the
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: majority of the ports reports do seem to be around
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the lines of emotional and verbal abuse.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Not okay, and this was his legitimate father, right correct?
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Okay? So, like I said, Josh was a bit quiet,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: but overall pretty good kid. He didn't do particularly well
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: in high school, but he was studying to work with
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: computers and he had a knack for it. He also
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: took care of his dog, but whenever the moment struck,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: his dad would still find reason to get angry at
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: his son and take out whatever anger he had.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Wow, well, he could have been like a mean drunk, right.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Sometimes people completely change when they're under the influence.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Of alcohol, That's true. And a lot of times people
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: say that the true you comes out during alcohol consumption
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: in creation, which just goes to I mean I'm a
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: happy drunk. I slur a lot, Yeah you do. My
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: eyebrows get higher and higher on my forehead too. The
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: mare I drink and you.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Talk a shit, I don't shake, you, don't shut the
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: fuck up.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: But I'm happy. If that's the worst of it, I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: think I think we're good.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So this this guy wasn't quite on that level.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: No, No, definitely not complete flip side of the coin.
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: So he had actually made up like a very strict
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: and somewhat nonsensical rules for the house for Joshua and
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: his wife Melissa to follow.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: The wife too, Hey, yeah, he.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: Was a very controlling individual.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, almost like he was just trying to set them
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: up and waiting for them to trip so he could
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: have some sort of excuse in his mind, a legitimate
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: excuse but definitely not but still an excuse to lash
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: out at them. So josh had to act and be
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: a certain way he could.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Freaking hate that.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not fun, No, especially for someone so young too.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: And we see that time and time again that abuse
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: like that really affects these kids in major ways.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that would affect someone for the rest of
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: their life.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Oh hell yeah.
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: I mean he is at home learning how to Oh
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: how do you even explain this, like changing his behaviors
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: to make someone else happy or not upset. Yeah, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: that literally will be how he will spend a lot,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: like the rest of his life.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, trying to.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Please people so that shit doesn't go astray exactly.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: And remember that what you just said.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, okay, great, great. I always say things and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: you're like, remember what.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: You remember who you are? That was my impression to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: Moufasso there. I don't know if you caught onto that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I did. Anyways, So Joshua was also only allowed to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: play with other neighborhood kids if his dad was home. Okay,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: then maybe he'd let them play in the house even
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: but even still it was pretty rare. But only when
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: he was home, and no wonder under no other circumstances.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: The idea of josh hanging around with younger girl didn't
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: sit well with Steve either, and being Jessica's best friend,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: it got josh in a lot of trouble, really, hey,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: especially because wherever Jessica went, Maddie was sure to follow,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and Steve had a real problem seeing the three of
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: them together. So a fourteen year old year old boy
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: hanging out with an eleven year old girl and an
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: eight year old girl. I can understand some of the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: negative impressions on that, don't get me wrong, I really can.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: But also, kids generally are pretty innocent.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: He's probably just trying to almost protect his son.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I thought. There's a real possibility of that. Yeah, but
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: just because his intentions were good doesn't mean the way
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: he's going about it is good.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: No, not at all well in a lot of time too.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: When you enforce rules like oh, you can't play unless
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: I'm home, the kid's gonna play when you're not home,
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: just despite you.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: And hide it. Yeah, so exactly, And that's what josh
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: kind of tried to do. He tried to hide the
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: situation as best as he could. His friendship with Jessica
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: and hanging out with Maddie too, right, so he wasn't
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: about to turn his back and his best friend, so
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: hiding it is what he did. So he did do
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: his best to cover his tracks, you know, hide everything
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: from his father. And maybe that's why they had such
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a strong relationship. Joshua was fourteen. Looking at it from
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Jessica's perspective, it must have felt pretty nice to have
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: an older boy there for you to be your emotional support,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: especially when he was willing to face his angry father
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: just to do it. Yeah, especially when you don't have
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: very many friends at school.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I honestly would not have thought of.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: That, right. I mean, we don't really know what Jessica
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: felt towards Joshua, and as I did mention, there were
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: rumors that Joshua had some feelings towards Jessica, it could
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: have been reciprocated too. We don't know.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: Eleven's pretty young though.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: It is so so that history aside for now. He
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: was a teenage boy, and this is what his mother
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: explained to the police that were swarming the inside of
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: his house, their house, with Maddie laying on it.
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: I almost forgot about that, okay.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: So it's more than a little predictable that we'd have
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a few things stashed away in our room as a
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: teenage and teenager, especially a fourteen year old teenage boy, right,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: things that might who knows, make your room stink? Oh yeah, yep.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Not to mention, Josh had three pet birds, so on
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: occasion his room would be disastrous. It would begin to stink,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: and usually it was from this unkept bird cage.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Okay, So a smell wouldn't have really necessarily alarmed the
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: mom right away exactly.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And that's what she's trying to explain. She thought the
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: smell was the bird cage his room getting control.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: Gosh, that's something there.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So she began to tell her son that he
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: needs to clean his room, and eventually any parent and
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: teenage can attest to it might have come time to
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I mean eventually get clean. But some butting of head
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: might have occurred, you know, arguing I'm not going to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: clean my room whatever, right, but it would have come
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: down she needs to pester Josh, and that's what she
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: did for the next few days, getting his room to clean.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: It's starting to smell awful and worse and worse as
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the days go on. Josh's fix during those days consisted
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of things like incense and fabreeze and glade plugins. What
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the fuck did.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: He think was going to happen?
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Okay, So on this day, while he was at school,
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Josh's mom had enough. She took matters into her own
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: hands as it was getting out of control.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: Well, the whole house is probably just starting to reap exactly.
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: She went in there that day, grabbed all his laundry,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: cleaning everything she could, and all the while looking for
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: what was making the smell. Oh my gosh, wasn't the clothes,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the bird cage, no dirty dishes or moldy food was
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: making any sort of smell that she could even come
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: close to was what she was smelling? None of it
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: was the answer. She just couldn't find it. But then
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: she saw a wet patch in the carpet right beside
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Joshua's bed, and she knew she had it. Josh as
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, had a waterbed. When Melissa saw this
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: wet patch, she figured the waterbed must be leaking and
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: was making the floorboards rot, the carpet rot, and it
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: was mould mildew. That must be what she's smelling, this rotting,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: wet carpet.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: God, I can't even hardly listen to this.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: So working through the stench, she first tried to find
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: the spot on the mattress that was leaking, and that's
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: when she noticed the side of Josh's bed had been
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: taped up. She assumed it was a miserable attempt to
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: stop the water from leaking out of the bed. As
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: she peeled away the tape to investigate, and it became
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: apparent that the tape wasn't covering up the mattress itself,
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: but more below it and onto the bed frame. Oh
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: my gosh, So why teenagers do what they do sometimes
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: is beyond adults, and this was no exception. In this moment,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: she was puzzled as to what was going on and
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: why there was tape on the bedframe, but she pushed
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: through removed the tape and moved the mattress aside enough
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: where she could look inside the void of the bed
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: frame where the tape was blocking off. Now immediately she
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: saw a white sock.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Gosh.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: She reached forward and grabbed it, thinking it was stuff
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: he had shoved under his bed, dirty clothes, but it
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: seemed to be stuck on something. Oh man. So she
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: went and grabbed a flashlight so she could get a
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: better look at what was going on. She took the flashlight,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: leaned forward with the flashlight in hand, and once again
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: grabbed the sock. And it was in this moment she
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: felt something. It felt like a cold foot inside the
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: and as she flinched back in panic, she got a
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: quick glimpse as the light flicked into the darkness under
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the bed and she saw Maddie's lifeless body.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: Good god, this is almost like makes you unwell.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It's not pretty.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: That is that's too much. It's too much.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine finding that let alone in my own house. Yeah,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: let alone under my own fourteen year old son's bed.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. We either's so many things. It's like,
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: in that moment, what would that person be thinking? But
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: that just horror. I think you just like almost go
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: onto shock, I blackout.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I don't think she would have really been thinking at all.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I think she she just had this horror and she
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: knew who and what was occurring and just reacted. I
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: think it was a reflex. She ran from the house,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: ran to get one of the officers because the neighborhood
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: was still flooded with officers right especially over at their house,
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: the Clifton's house. So she got the officers, brought them
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: over to her house, and that leads us to where
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: we left off.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Wow, Yeah, you know, you would almost wonder. I feel like,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, I probably shouldn't be saying this, but some parents,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: like I don't know if they would just right away
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: go to the police. That's true, Like I think that
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: there would be some people out there that would continue
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: to hide this to protect their sons, which is not right.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: No, it's not right, but it's you're right. It is
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: a very high possibility that some individuals would do that.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: And doesn't seem like she even kind of thought that
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: way at all, just like, oh my gosh, like let's
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: go get the police.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, And that's exactly what it was. I mean, if
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: you look at it in this perspective. One family lost
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: their child and she had a decision to turn her
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: own child in and definitely not the same shoes. Don't
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: get me wrong, I'm not comparing the families, but both
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: families are in a way losing their child. Yeah, and
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: she made that decision.
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: Because I almost wonder if it would have been the
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: same if the dad found it.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: That's a good question.
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know, because just kind of understanding what he's like,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: I could see that kind of individual going about hiding
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: this and protecting their son, oh snap, and that they
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: would probably just bury the body and kind of carry
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: on with there.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Would he be the kind of guy to protect his
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: son though? Are you thinking like the whole masculinity part
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: where he's trying to show his son love but it's
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: just really tough love.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: No. I think it would be protecting his son to
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: a degree, because I think he does have that there
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: and a little bit, but also protecting the family and
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: protecting the name, the family's name.
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: Maybe he might might also be his anger and this
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: sort of stuff could be a resentment, and maybe he
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: would be happy at the chance to be rid of
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: his son.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Why my mind went there, But it did,
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: and I.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: I know that that's a very good point to speak up. Wow,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know which way his father would have gone. Yeah,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: that's wow. Okay, interesting that. I mean, we'll never know, No,
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: we won't ever know. Anyways, moving on, the mystery of
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: where Maddie went had now been solved, but it brought
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: up a whole slew of other questions that came with it.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: So to get to that, investigators would have to go
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: find Joshua. So they went to find him where he
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: was that same day, that same moment, they tracked him
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: down at school, where he was arrested and escorted out
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: of the building, leaving his classmates and teachers in absolute disbelief.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Well yeah, especially because everyone in the area knew of
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: this case.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: Oh man, that would be the last, like, the last
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: kind of individual that you would think would be would
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: be getting arrested for this.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Well, when you think of a child missing, generally you
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: think of an individual driving a vehicle, snatching a kid
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: and driving away, let alone the four.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: Ten year old neighbor neighbor boy.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: So once in coughs, once arrested, it did not take
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: police long to get a full confession out of what
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: he'd done.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: Wow, I mean that doesn't honestly surprise me at all.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I don't think he'd go about hiding this no, well,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: I mean he did initially try, but I oh did
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: he oh by hiding it under the bed? H I
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: get it, but I'm very intrigued. What the fuck happened here?
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: Like what happened?
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Well? Joshua's explanation is this okay? And I don't think
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: you're ready for it okay. Josh explained that on that evening,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: only six days before Maddie was found, that Maddy had
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: come over and asked Joshua to play this It's not
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned in Josh's confession because I mean he wasn't part
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: of it, but this would have been around the time
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: Maddy went home to get more golf balls. She most
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: likely would have decided, I don't want to play golf anymore,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: and she saw Josh outside and she went over to
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: him to play and stuff.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: I'm going to see what Josh was doing.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: So josh had been home alone doing his list of
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: chores that he was tasked with at the time, and
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: he knew his parents were due back soon and he
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: didn't want to get caught playing with Maddie, especially by
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: his father. But he said that Maddie asked once and
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: he turned her away and he kept on doing his chores.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And I believe at this time he was raking leaves
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: or something, because he had quite the list of chores.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: He had something like twenty chores that his dad would
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: task him with like every day. Holy shit, Now, mind you.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Some of these chores are pretty menial tasks like feed
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: the dog, right, Okay, I think it was more I
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: think it was more so means of keeping him busy
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: in the time when he gets home from school from
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: when the parents get oh, okay, which I totally understand.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: I know, but I was like, if I got like
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: one or two chores, I'd be like, what the fuck
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: too much?
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, mind you. I don't think I had a
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: list of like twenty chores, but I definitely had some
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: more chores. When I was a kid, had lots of freedoms.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: There were certain days where I had more chores than others,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: like that sort of thing. Yeah, but I totally understand
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: the concept of chores, you know, keeping your kid out
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: of trouble when you're not there.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's lots of times it comes with getting a
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: little bit of an allowance too.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and he is fourteen, so responsibility is something
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: that he's definitely needing to learn, right, exactly so, but
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: he said, Maddie asked once he turned her away kept
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: ondoing her chores, and then shortly later she came back
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: and asked again, asked if he wanted to play baseball,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: and he decided she wasn't going to give up and
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: it couldn't hurt to play at least just for a
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: little while.
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: On well, he probably wanted to desperately play too, probably,
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: so like this kind of just is hurting my heart
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: a little.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: Well, the two began playing baseball. They were taking turns
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: throwing and swinging the ball, but shortly after it all began,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Maddie threw the ball and josh batted, but when he
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: hit the ball, it ended up hitting Maddie just above
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the eye, giving her a large gash, and the girl
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: burst into tears. Now, the two didn't have a large
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: area to play in, so Joshua said that they were
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: standing not very far apart, which would of course dramatically
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: increase the risk of getting struck by the ball. When
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: hit right, absolutely, So Josh then said that he didn't
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: know what to do. He started to panic, and he
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: couldn't get Maddie to stop crying or bleeding. Josh didn't
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: want his dad to come home and find an eight
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: year old girl crying in his property, especially with the gash,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: when Josh is supposed to be doing his chores.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So first thing Josh did was get Maddie into the
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: house and up to his room. He's panicking. He's hoping
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: to find something there that he could help stop the
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: bleed and calm Maddie down. But Maddie just kept.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: Crying because she's fucking hurt.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, it was already a big no no that Josh
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: had agreed to play with her, but it was a
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: very big nonmal that he now had brought her into
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: the house too.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: But I mean, he could have just brought her home
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: across the street.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: But he was panicking because he wasn't even allowed to
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: play from the stot right.
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: And then okay, the parents would see Okay.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: So Josh, panicking, not knowing what to do, did the
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: only thing he could, the only thing he could think
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of to get Maddie to stop crying. And he began
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: covering her mouth and trying to keep her as quiet
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: as he could in hopes that she would stop jeez,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: but she didn't. In fact, I'm actually willing to bet
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: that it made it worse.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's probably scared shitless.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, she's an eight year old girl, hurt, bleeding,
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: and most likely concussed, and now she's alone in a
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: room with a much older, larger boy who is forcuately
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: not helping her, not helping her forcefully trying to convince
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: her to shut her mouth while she is crying in pain.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so things are beginning to get out of hand.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very I can. I can see this.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: Either way though, Whether she was getting more and more
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: afraid or not, Josh's plan was not working. Maddie kept
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: squirming and crying loudly. He didn't know what else to do.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: He didn't know how to get her quiet, so he
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: reached for the baseball bat that the two had been
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: using to play, and he raised it over his head. Oh,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: and began striking her repeatedly until she wasn't crying anymore.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: What the actual fuck?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: That is mind blowing.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: How fucked up is that.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: That that is literally the only outcome that you come
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: up with in your fucking mind. Yeah, to just like start, Okay, Okay.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: Now I do want to mention this. Josh did say
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: that he struck Maddie with the baseball bat. Forensics crime
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: scene investigators were able to find blood spatter on Joshua's
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: ceiling fan in his room, indicating that an overhead swing
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: with the bat was what was occurring. The first hit
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: would have gotten the blood on the bat, and as
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: he drew back to get ready for a second or
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: multiple more swings after that is when blood would have
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: flicked off the end of the bat up to the
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: ceiling fan.
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is an okay, like, this is literally how
• 42:28
  Speaker 2: Maddie is dying. I can't like that's bad.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Holy shit, I told you this is a rough case.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I am okay, Okay, So he's he's okay, yep.
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: You good?
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Well, now, well I know you're not good, but are
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: you ready to keep going?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, according to Joshua, after Maddie went quiet, he
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: quickly opened up his bed frame and shoved her under
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the bed and washed up in the bathroom, and only
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: moments later his parents came home.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: So Joshua left his room, came downstairs and spent a
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: little bit of time with his parents, and once he
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: realized that they hadn't figured out that Maddie was upstairs,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: he left them went back up to try and figure
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: out what to do next. And when Joshua got back
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: to his room, Maddie wasn't crying, but he did hear
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: her again. She was whimpering from underneath the Joshua knew
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: if she kept it up, it wouldn't take any time
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: at all for his parents to figure out that someone
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: was in his room. So josh frantically pulled open the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: bed frame and took his leatherman knife from his bookshelf
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: and began stabbing Maddie in the chest seven times, as
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: well as cutting her throat. He pushed her back under
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: the bed and hoped no one would find out.
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And by this time, the search for Maddie was already underway.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: And then he just hops on his fucking bike and
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: goes looking for her.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, keeping up the charade. He left his house with
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: his parents to partake in this.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: This is unbelievable. Yeah, okay, I mean okay, he's fourteen,
• 44:31
  Speaker 2: But I'm like, is that literally how a fourteen year
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: old thinks?
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: I just I can't comprehend that that that is literally
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: that is what he thinks.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: His only option is, yeah, that's that's a big problem
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: with this is sure thing snowball, Sure people panic. However
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: to that degree.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like that, I almost I just have to. I
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: think there's some thing slightly like I don't know how
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: to word this. I'm spiraling now, but there has to
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: be something wrong with like his how he thinks.
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking there might be. But up until this point,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: there was pretty much.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Nothing okay, and that came out so poorly. I apologize
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: that I am a little bit. Yeah.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: Now, once investigations did begin, there was some reports of
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: some pretty violent and graphic pornography found on his computer,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: which could point to be an indicator on this.
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: Wow. However, because sound naked, wasn't she?
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Her underwear and pants were removed?
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, why that doesn't make any sense? So did he
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: like rape her?
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: We'll touch on that part here.
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: I wow.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, everyone was shocked to hear Josh's story, just
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: as shocked as you, if not more. I'm sure and
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: They were actually shocked as well, because they'd missed Maddie
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: in the first place. They'd searched the Phillips house before
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: they searched houses on the street. They'd actually searched the neighborhood,
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and they'd searched this house a total of three times
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: in those six days that Maddie was missing.
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: They had like a feeling that she was in there
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: They were just searching houses nearby.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: But I mean, the kid hated her pretty well. Yeah,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: now they're not going to be lifting fucking mattresses probably.
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: I don't know how extensive it would be.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: During the search though, they did notice the smell, but
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: at that time it wasn't strong enough. They talked to
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: them like the thought it was the bird cave. Y,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Oh what's that smell? The mom says, Oh, he just
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: needs to clean his room. That bird cage is getting
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: to be a mess.
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is almost just it's yeah, it's just, I mean,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: it makes sense how this is just spiraled. It's unbelievable.
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: It's still not an excuse. It's still fucking horrific.
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, oh, my gosh, this should never have happened.
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: I am trying to almost think back to how I
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: thought as a fourteen year old, but then grant you,
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: like my situation was different, like I didn't have this
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: abusive father. But I just I'm struggling with literally thinking
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: that someone would think that is their only option. I
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: can't get over that. I don't think I'll ever get
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: over that.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: I don't think I could ever get on that same
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: level of thought either. Like that is fucked up.
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: It's super fucked up. And that's why I'm like, I'm
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: wondering if like something else is wrong here.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Well, you have to think Joshua killed someone. Yeah, so
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: he is weighing his reprimendation from his parents equal to
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: the life of another Yeah, Like, are you fucking kidding me?
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Is he literally afraid that his parents are going to
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: kill him? Like literally?
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: Or I almost wonder I mean if he wasn't just
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: thinking it through. I don't think he was thinking it
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: through either. I mean, did he not think that this
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: body was going to like smell? But I mean I
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: guess he probably has no experience with something like that.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: What however, and later like authorities did ask him what
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: his plan was, like how what he was going to
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: do with her? And he's just like I don't know.
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: So he had no plan.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: He had no plan, He did not know what he
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: was doing. Oh yeah, I'll talk about this a little
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: bit later. I'm gonna I'm actually gonna write this in
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: my notes right now, so I don't forget hold on. Okay,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I've gotten it written down. I won't forget it. So
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: remember this pot because we're going to touch on it later. Okay,
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: sounds good, So moving on. Though, once authorities had Josh
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: in custody, Josh never denied killing Maddie until later on
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: in court when he would plead not guilty. But that's
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: through other means and reasons like, for example, it could
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: be insanity or something like that. There's reasons and doors
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to keep open when pleading not.
• 49:00
  Speaker 2: And I imagine he was probably directed.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Yes, I'm sure he was. Yeah, so he did not
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: deny killing Maddie. Now, an autopsy did quickly reveal that
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: there were some inconsistency inconsistencies in his story. The biggest,
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: which you pointed out earlier, was the fact that Maddie
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: wasn't wearing any pants or underwear.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that doesn't make any sense, and.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: She was still wearing her socks. But was nude from
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: the waist down. Now, there were no signs of sexual assault. Okay,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: that's the good. Only explanation Josh could give for why
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Maddie was missing her clothes was that they'd come off
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: while he was dragging her into the house.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, that doesn't make any sense. Yes, I kind of.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is disturbing as fuck, But I bet
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: you he was just like curious. I kind of bet
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: you he just looked or something.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: That's I think that's my thought too, But like that
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: makes me fucking sick to think that.
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's disgusting. This whole thing is fucking disgusting.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, especially considering most likely that curiosity came post mortem.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Yep. Oh yeah, I would think so too.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Fuck that's hard to say. Yeah, yeah, so I'm going
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: to move on from that. Anyways, the prosecution couldn't make
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: any sexual offense charges stick, but they had enough to
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: charge him with first degree murder, and they tried Josh
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: as an adult. His trial had been moved a county
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: halfway across the state because it was way too widely
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: known in Jacksonville, and the courts were concerned of the
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: integrity of the jury.
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa. Here, I'm actually surprised by the
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: first degree.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: He's being tried as an adults.
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: First degree murder though, Isn't that like it's like planned?
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I think first degree is like planned or wilfulness or
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: something like that. I think is the exact definition. Do
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: you want me to look it up?
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: Sure? I mean, I guess there have been many attempts
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: for him to stop doing what he was doing, but
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I for some reason, was kind of more so expecting
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: a manslaughter or something, because, uh, like we said, it
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: was just kind of spiraling.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: And manslaughter I believe is like out of your control,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: like your car is out of control and you are
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: drunk and you hit someone with your vehicle. I think
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: that's more along the lines of manslaughter. First murder is
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the intentional killing of another person by someone who has
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: actually acted wilfully, deliberately, or with planning.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, see, I was thinking first year is morsel planning
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: and this to me was not planned.
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: But no, but it was he wilful or deliberate.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: He had many opportunities to stop what the fuck he
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: was doing. I mean, even the fact that I guess
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: he did beat her with the bat and then later
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: freaking stab her.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: Oh like that would have been like probably an hour later.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now there's one more piece. Actually I didn't put
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: into this, and I wasn't gonna mention it, but this
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: is a good spot to say it. During her autopsy
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: there was her hands were bound and bags wrapped around
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: them from the CSI investigators, right, which they often do
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: to see if defensive wounds DNA and her fingernails. So
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: they're preserving the hands, right, So they'll tie the hands up,
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: put a bag over them to preserve whatever evidence on
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: her hands. Okay. With her hands was a bracket from
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: the bed frame. There was four brackets under the bed.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: One of them was missing. One of them was with
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: her hands, which most likely suggests in the time of
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: her first beating with the bat, between then and when
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: she was taken out and stabbed the second time, or
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: attacked the second time and stabbed, she was trying to
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: escale with means of this bracket.
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: Wow. Okay, that's hard as hell.
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: Yes. So Josh had his day in court a year later.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: It was, without a doubt a trial to remember, the
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: defense called no witnesses, banking everything on the lawyer and
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: their closing statements, and because of that, the trial only
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: lasted two days. Joshua's lawyer, basically to sum it all up,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: claimed that the abuse Joshua had experienced at the hand
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: of his father had led him to panic and essentially
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: just make a big mistake. The jury disagreed, and after
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: only two hours of deliberation, they found him guilty of
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: first degree murder. The judge then sentenced Joshua with the
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: maximum sentence available to a minor and sentenced him to
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: life in prison without the possibility of parole. Wow, and
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: that should have been that, that's not that.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: But oh, for the love of God, this is just
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: going to cantin you on, isn't it.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Well. A change in law, of course, put that entire
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: conviction on shaky grounds, as we have mentioned in other cases,
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: this very same law. In twenty twelve, the Supreme Court
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: ruled it unconstitutional to sentence minors to life sentences without
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: the possibility of parole, and this meant that Josh's case
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: would get another day in court.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: Holy heck, please tell me that he's still in.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Jail and had to wait until twenty seventeen, okay, and
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: josh would appear in court again.
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: Yep. Now we're families having a go through the shit again.
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: Exactly which my heart goes to them. It's terrible.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: So Josh now being an adult, an educated paralegal by
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the way, where now he actually helps other victims in
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: jail and helps defending them with their their cases and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: giving what came across as a very heartfelt apology to
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: Maddie's family, which you can find the full apology on YouTube.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: It looked like he had a real chance to walk free.
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: Maddie's family still reeling from everything from so many years
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: down the road, it's just still feeling so fresh. They
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: were left waiting and wondering if the person who killed
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: Maddie would soon be walking.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: Free really after not serving much time.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but the judge side of the fact that Josh
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: had been able to commit such a brutal crime when
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: he was only a minor himself as the reason why
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: he believed that Josh's sentence should be upheld. Josh had
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: a perfect track record in prison and was a model prisoner,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't enough to erase the lasting repercussions of
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: what he had done or to minimize the potential for
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: him to commit a similar crime again. So behind bars
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: is where Josh will stay until the day he dies.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: Really, he won't be getting out there.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: Could.
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: I don't feel like he might have the chance.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Life without parole has been upheld.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: Wow, So that's honestly a little surprising to me too.
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: But go ahead.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Sorry, backtracking a little bit. When we were kind of
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: trying to dissect Josh's thought process, like why he was
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: doing this and that sort of stuff, we talked about
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: his plans or like what he was going to do.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Taking a direct quote from Josh's apology in court, I
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: don't want I thought about playing the whole thing, but
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I don't want to give him that that credit. I
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: don't want to give him that voice. If you want
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: to search it out, it is worth listening to, but
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: I don't want to give him the platform of them
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: makes sense, that's fair, but I do want to quote it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: Josh in his apology said this, I had no clue
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: what life meant, what death meant. And I think he's
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: being sincere there. I don't think he really understood what No.
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: I agree the repercussions of what he was doing, I
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: absolutely agree. Yeah, and that's why I'm a little bit
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: surprised that he has, I mean, absolutely no chance of getting.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: Out well, and that's why it's now unconstitutional to life
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: without parole for for kids basically, right. Yeah, However, I mean,
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: that's a horrific fucking crime.
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: It's very horrific, and I know he needs to serve
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: an adequate amount of time. That's not what I'm saying here,
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: but it's just he could do a lot of rehabilitation in.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: That he could. He could, but where's the justice done?
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: I struggle with that?
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: So do I. I see both sides to this coin,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: and both arguments are valid. I might get flat for
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: saying that, but I mean there is there is some
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: points to Josh being released. I do see it. Not
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: that I think he should. I think he should, fucking rot.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: He did a horrible thing.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: Like I'm talking not until he's like maybe forties or
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: fifties kind of later than that, Like he has to
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: go through and really I understand what he did, and
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: they got to make sure that he's not going to reoffend.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: But that's all.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: When you're that young, that's a very long time to
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: spend in your whole life in jail, y'h true.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: But I think if and I'm only talking hypothetical here,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: if an individual like this was able to get parole,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: the strict regimen and criteria they would have to meet
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: before getting parole would be insane. I don't think anyone
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: would be able to meet that by the age of
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: forty or fifty. In my opinion, I think it would
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: have to be much later in life.
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, I mean, like you said there that he
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: is the perfect record in jail, and he's seeming like
• 58:43
  Speaker 2: he's getting an education of sorts as well. So that
• 58:47
  Speaker 2: did impress me.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: I did, And that's that's what there were relying on
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: in his defense. They were relying on him being impressive
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: as an inmate. Look, he's perfect, now he's good.
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: He's not, yeah, is he? He'd never be perfect with
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: what he did. He had done.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Look at his childhood exactly what we were talking about
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: the very beginning. In fact, you said it, I did.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: This is the point where you're like, remember why you said, yeah.
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: He learned to please those around him. Yeah, maybe that's
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: exactly what he's doing. He's thriving and he's learning to
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: please those around him to get what he wants.
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this case is horrid, isn't it.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: It's fucked up.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: This is horrible. I'm done with this. Thanks patrons.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: I'm just kidding.
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: We love you guys.
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but this, this was a this is unbelievable. Yeah.
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: So that is the case of Maddie Clifton, the eight
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: year old who lost her life in such a tragic way.
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: It's it's just this whole thing. It's just enough to
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: make you ill.
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Whether whether Josh is telling the truth, the full
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: truth and nothing about the truth on exactly what happened,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: or not he might be hiding some more horrific things
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: that occurred. It's a terrible way to go either way,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: whether it was something that did get out of hand
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: or not.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: Well, horrific, and honestly, if it wasn't Maddie, it very
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: well could have been something else. Later. Yeah, you said
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: that there was some weird shit on his computer, right, Well.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: There is one final thing And I heard this in
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a couple other podcasts, but I couldn't find any information
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: on it, so I didn't put it in my notes
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: because I couldn't come up with the facts for it.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: So here we are at the end. So I'm going
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: to mention it. So if you guys want to see
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: if you can find the info on it, go for it.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: There was some talk about there being peep holes found
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: in Jessica's room, some holes drilled in walls or something
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: like that, which could not be rooted back to Joshua,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: but potentially it was. They're thinking, really again, I've only
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: heard conversations about it.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: Far fetched to me. It does like someone's gonna fucking
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: notice if there's like holes in their wall. Yeah, from
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: like the outside, there's be drafty and shit. I don't know.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: I find that hard to believe. But I don't know this.
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know. Weird shit's happened, that's true.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: But if you guys find that information, share it with us.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: We'd love to see it. I scoured, I couldn't find any.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe I was just typing in the wrong thing. I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't exactly want to type in stuff
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: like fourteen year old boy spye an eight year old girl.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: Ha, so oh my gosh, our freaking search histories or
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: or I mean, mine wouldn't even be surprised if I
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: type something like that in I don't think.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Oh sorry, it was fourteen year old boy spying an
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: eleven year old because it's just yeah, but yeah, that's
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: not any better, just brutal.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well well done. I mean I think now you
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: need to just try to get a good night's sleep.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think what we're gonna do over on Patreon,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: we're going to do another poll for another case, lighthearted case.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: I know, because wasn't I I was just I was
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: saying the other day, we need to find another one
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: like our Maple Syrup ice.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't think there's any other case out there
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: like the Maple Syrup case.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: That one was so good. I'm actually still obsessed with
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: that one.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: That one that's the most Canadian thing ever, millions of
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: dollars stolen in Maple Syruce.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: It was so fun. That one was fun.
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: So yeah, if you guys have any case like that,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: maybe where someone doesn't die weird. Look, maybe that's what
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll find on Papreon. We'll see if we can
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: come down the pipes something like that soon.
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: Because survivor stories and stuff are nice too, but lots
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 2: of times they're pretty bad too.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they can be absolutely horrific, really bad. Well, there,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: there's as far as i'm concerned you can. I mean,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: there could be more categories, but the basic categories are
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: it's someone dies, a survivor, and then it's like just
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: random crimes like theft and stuff. Those are the three
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: like crime cases than that you can get down to lake.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, of course you can kidnapping and rape and
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: all this sort of cult stuff blah blah blah, but
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: I think those are like the three basic categories of crimes.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I think I want to cover maybe not
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: a survivor or not a murder, just a like a
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: bank robbery or something. You know, like how that is lighthearted.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: Let's just talk about someone tot and guns and stealing money.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: That's a lighthearted story for.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: Well, I just I can't even really see how that
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: would be a very good story. But who knows. There's
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: probably something out there.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: Well there was. I don't know if I want to
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: do it because it is fairly fresh, and I don't
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: know if the guy has gone to trial yet. But
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: there was that one that came up I think it
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: was twenty twenty two, maybe late twenty twenty one, that
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: like the Tinder or Swindler, remember that one where the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: dude like swindled a bunch of money out of these
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: women on the Tinder app.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, that one.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Might be a good one to do. But I don't
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: know if he's seen trial yet.
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty fresh, isn't it. Yeah, Okay, that's kind
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: of like an example of what we're looking for.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not that I mean, people got fucked, but people
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: didn't physically get harmed, you know what I mean. Yeah,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: So yeah, something like that. There we go where people
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: aren't dying horrifically.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see if we can do a couple of those. Maybe.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Yes, I think we need to come up with a
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: few more of those in the future here the near future. Yeah,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: but yeah, all that aside. If you want to go
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: over and Patreon and maybe take part in this poll.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: If you have a case, head over to Patreon link
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: is in our description. You can get some extra behind
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: the scenes content, an extra episode at the end of
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: each month, or even if you don't want to do that,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: you can just shoot us an email or a message
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: or something. That'd be cool too. If you really want
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: to be nice to us, if you absolutely want to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: get in our good books, you can leave us a
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: good review.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: Those are awesome.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: Those are awesome, like absolutely amazing. We do drink it.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: We do read every single one of them, by the way.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: We do. So there's been some doozy, so we asked
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: that you leave us like a good review.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: I actually thought rec and maybe we should do a
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: YouTube video of us reading some.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 2: Of our bad Oh man, I have some horrible ones though,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: I mean, okay, but if you're still listening at this point,
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 2: I do think that you really like us, so please
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: leave us.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. Okay, well maybe that's that's our
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: cue to shut up and let you be on your day.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you very much for listening this far.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: If you have hopefully, yes hopefully you're able to sleep
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: all at night while listening through this whole story, I
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: was absolutely terrible.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well done, and until next time, stay wicked.