On November 3, 1998, Josh Phillips murdered his neighbor Maddie Clifton. Philips was just 14 when he beat and stabbed 8-year-old Clifton.

Clifton had come over to the Phillips’s house to play, and Phillips accidentally hit her in the eye with a baseball bat, resulting in the young girl to start crying. Phillips feared that his father would find out that the girl had been at their house in the first place and that he had hit her, so he took the young girl to his bedroom and tried to get her to stop crying. Clifton continued to cry, so Phillips hit her in the head with the bat three times. Although Clifton would have eventually died from her injuries, she did not do so immediately and moaned in pain. Phillips then took a knife off of his bookshelf and slit her throat, and then stabbed her in the neck twice. Phillips’s parents would be home soon, so he removed the wooden side panel from his waterbed and placed Clifton inside. While Phillips attempted to clean the blood off his hands, he could still hear Clifton moaning in pain. Again, he removed the wood panel and pulled her out. He then stabbed her nine times in the chest before placing her back in the waterbed.

For six days, the police and town searched for Maddie Clifton. Phillips also participated in the search. For a week, Phillips slept in his bed with Maddie Clifton’s decomposing body. Josh’s mother found Clifton’s body. His mom was cleaning when she noticed a liquid seeping from the bed; she assumed his waterbed was leaking. She pulled the frame apart to find the leak and saw the young girl’s leg and foot. She promptly exited the house and went to find the police, who were conducting a search down the street. The police came to the house and searched the boy’s room. They found Clifton, the baseball bat, and his bloody tennis shoes.

In 1999, Phillips was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He was ineligible for the death penalty as he was under the age of 16. In 2004, Phillips’s mother asked for a new trial because she believed that her son’s age at the time of the crime should have been considered in his sentencing. In 2005, new hearing dates were set; however, his life sentence was upheld.