Madelyn Rae Clifton was born June 17th, 1990, in Jacksonville, Florida. She lived with her mother, Sheila, her father, Steve, and older sister Jessica. On November 3rd, 1998, Maddie failed to return home for dinner after going outside to play.
After school on November 3rd, 1998, 8-year-old Maddie went home and practiced the piano. After doing so she went out to play in the neighborhood. She started out by going to chip golf balls with 45-year-old Larry Grisham, who lived down the street. After a while, they had lost all the golf balls and Maddie said she would go home to get more. She told her mom, Sheila, that they had lost all the balls and that they needed more, that was the last time her mom saw her alive.
By 6:30 Sheila had called out for Maddie and her sister to come home for dinner. Jessica, her sister, came home but Maddie was nowhere to be seen. Sheila went out to look for Maddie, she went door to door and ended up yelling for Maddie on their porch. At 6:33, Sheila called the police and reported Maddie’s disappearance. The entire neighborhood went out to look for Maddie and looked for her late into the night. Over the course of the next week, hundreds of people searched for the missing girl. Her family passed out fliers, made tee shirts with her picture on them, and offered a $50,000 reward for information that would bring her home. On November 10th, the body of Maddie Clifton was found in a neighbor's house across the street.
Melissa Phillips was getting tired of her 14-year-old son, Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips, not cleaning his room when she had been nagging him about it all week. Josh was on the bus to school on November 10th, and Melissa had a few hours before she had to go to work, so she decided to clean up some things she knew were garbage. Melisa went into his room and immediately noticed a bad smell. Josh had 3 birds, so his mother just assumed that he had not changed the cage in a few days. She then noticed a wet spot by Josh’s waterbed and thought that it was leaking. While investigating his bed she saw a white sock peeking out of the pedestal, she tried to get it out but was unable to. Melissa then found that the corner of the pedestal was taped together with black electrical tape. She thought that this was weird because Josh had never done anything like this before. Melissa removed the tape and the panel of the pedestal and found something she never would have imagined.
The first thing Melissa did after finding Maddie’s body was to call her husband Steve. She got his voicemail, so she left him a message to call her because there was an emergency. She then ran outside to get the police officer that was watching the neighborhood due to Maddie's disappearance. She told him that she had found something in her house, and he needed to come look. The officer called for backup before heading into the house with Melissa. She took him to Josh’s room but would not enter. Finally, Maddie was found.
Josh was brought in for questioning, and he told the entire story. After school on November 3rd, Josh went home like usual. He was supposed to do a list of chores so that he was kept busy until his parents got home. He didn’t really want to do his chores, so he sat at his computer for a while. While Josh was not doing his chores, Maddie came over and asked him to play with her. He wasn’t allowed to have anyone in the house when his parents weren’t home so he told Maddie that he couldn’t. Eventually, Josh decided to do his chores because he did not want to get in trouble with his dad. While outside doing one of his tasks of raking the leaves, Maddie came over to his fence and again asked if Josh would play with her. He decided that it would be okay if they stayed in the yard, so they took turns pitching and hitting a baseball. On one of his hits, Josh hit the ball really hard and it hit Maddie in the face next to her left eye leaving a gash. She, of course, started screaming and crying and Josh panicked. He dragged Maddie into his room and tried to quiet her by putting his hand over her mouth. When that didn’t work, he took his baseball bat and beat her with it. Though she had quieted, Maddie was still making noise, so Josh took a letterman knife that he had and stabbed her with it. He then stuffed her into the base of his bed and started to clean up. While cleaning he heard Maddie groaning, so he took her out from under his bed and stabbed her a few more times before putting her back. In total Maddie was stabbed 11 times. When Maddie's mom came to their house to look for her, Josh’s dad told Josh that he should go out and help with the search, so he did.
Josh was convicted of Maddie’s Murder on July 8th, 1999, after the jury deliberated for only 2 hours. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. In August 2017, Josh’s case made it back to the 4th Judicial Circuit of the US Supreme Court for a second look. This was because it was deemed unlawful for juveniles to be sentenced to mandatory life in prison with no possibility of parole. At his resentencing, he was still given life without the possibility of parole. Josh filed an appeal on January 7th, 2020, arguing that his life sentence went against the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment. The Florida Supreme Court turned down his appeal. No explanation was given as to why.
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