The Bonebreaker Killer /// Part 2 /// 513 | Forensic Files

[Music] so [Music] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
listening i'm your host nick and with me as always as a man with plans for the future i guess their futuristic plans
here is the captain yeah call me captain mcfly it's good to be seen it's good to
see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are casually sipping on a gray
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hazelnuts toasty and nutty flavors play off bold yet smooth complexity in this bourbon barrel aged imperial stout
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jolene donated to the beer fun and she's cooler than you are and that is enough of the business all
right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
[Music] so [Music] immediately after the arrest of seventeen-year-old joseph clark in the
rescue of thirteen-year-old thaddeus phillips we have joe in jail waiting to be charged
we have thaad in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries and as far as what was being released to the public early
on there were just mostly small details coming from thad's father dawn as he answered reporters questions
while pretty much living at the hospital for days while doctors and nurses worked
to repair his boy don told reporters that neither he nor thad knew the boy joe clark prior to this incident so we
can rule out any kind of personal motive for the abduction and the harm caused to thaad
don told reporters that thad's captor brutalized and tortured the boy in the form of beatings that involved joe
choking punching as well as twisting the boy's ankles and legs and jumping up and down
on thad's legs according to don joe told thad that he had kidnapped the boy because he liked
busting people's bones and that he had done this type of thing before to other victims
now all kinds of interesting details will come out at the trial but the trial won't take place until the second half
of 1996. right now on our timeline we are in the early part of august 1995. so almost exactly 26 years ago
to this day but before we get to the trial let's talk more about this arrest because joe after he is arrested
he actually confesses to the police well sort of so he admits that he brought thad to his
house but says it was for the purposes of just hanging out he tells detectives that he does not
remember assaulting thad joe says he and this is his words quote blinked out for a while
and when he came to thad was lying on the floor bellyaching about his legs joe says he thought thad would
eventually die from the injuries so the way i take it is this his general statement is he does not know how
the 13 year old thaad received these injuries thad tells joe that he did that to thad
and joe says he tried to help the kid but again did think that thaad would eventually
die from these injuries so he says he tried to help thad but at the same time it doesn't look
like he was willing to let him go yeah but if you're inviting somebody over to hang out
quote-unquote like joe's saying you don't abduct them from their house and then on top of that
this blink out you blinked out for 43 hours as you tortured this kid joe clark sounds like an animal
well a monster really i mean to call him an animal is disrespectful to our our friends the animals animals but
no of course what you're going to have here captain is you're going to get two very different stories and of course joe
is going to have to admit to something because they find the victim in his home yeah it's a little hard to say hey i
didn't at least do something or have some part in this and so we've seen this it's very typical
behavior of any of the other psychopaths or psychopathic killers that we have talked about in the past where often
they will admit to some stuff especially if they're backed into a corner and that's exactly what we have here joe
clark is basically caught red-handed with his victim inside his residence and you're going to get a very different
story from thaad who says look i didn't go over to this dude's house i don't know who this guy is i don't have shoes
right he says i woke up and this guy was carrying me into his home and when we got there
joe kind of relaxes thad by telling him hey i brought you over here because i'm having a little party
and you know here's some people that are going to be coming over in a little bit
and that actually says that that joe referenced at least one or two names of people that he knew
so in that moment he was still kind of like you know just woke up really kind of confused as to what was going on
but when this guy says a name or two of people that he knows he thought well okay well maybe that is what's happening
let's keep in mind he's only 13. you can trick 13 year olds adults can be tricked
very easily sometimes as well so i was tricked into doing a podcast once about 530 times yeah so
it's not until later you know after some i want to stay on something because you
were saying thad says well i came to as joe's bringing me into his house do you think that he was just asleep or
do you think that maybe he used some kind of you know gas on the rag trick no this guy went
into the phillips home and carried the boy out and carried him to his residence wow in
fact when he first started to wake up thad said that he thought that he assumed it was his father carrying him
because it you know his father carried him dozens of times to bed in the middle of the night when dad fell asleep on the
couch or on the floor watching tv and so at first he's like kind of waking up and not really knowing what's going
on and just kind of assuming it's his father carrying him off to bed and then at some point he realizes hey i'm
outside of my house and i don't know who this guy is it's carrying me so is he just carrying him from house to house or
is he transporting him with a vehicle no he carried him from from tha phillips house to his house and
again we know that there was some torture that was going on we will know that and learn that later
because they're not very specific about the injuries early on and it's not fully
understood that all of these injuries took place over the course of hours you know the way
that don says it to the reporters almost makes it sound like it's some kind of blitz attack that that took place all at
one time but we have joe who is basically caught red-handed he's saying look i yeah i took this boy with the purposes
of hanging out and i don't know what happened i i his words again i blinked out and then when
i came out of this blinked out phase i looked down in this kids on the floor and he's crying and screaming about his
legs so of course two very differing stories now when we talk about thad's injuries
there was mention that he was probably going to die from those injuries we have that statement from
joe clark who says to police yeah when i saw the state that he was in i believed he would eventually die from
whatever happened to him from those injuries well let's back that information up
because we have doctors that later told thad and thad's family that in fact he was only hours away from
dying from internal bleeding wow in fact the medical professionals said that the
only time that they see people as severely injured as thaad was when he was brought into the er
is when they get people rushed in from really bad car accidents because as you pointed out in
yesterday's episode captain the femur bone is very difficult to break it takes a lot of pounds of pressure to
break the ankles you know these are difficult injuries and severe injuries and you were
basically saying that both ankles were broken and [Music] both femurs were broken one femur broke
and remember we have uh the doctor saying that they put pins in one leg and a rod in the other so my guess here
again not a doctor still working on that degree but um played one on tv once the pins were
probably for one of the ankles and the rod my guess would be for the femur now we talked about joe admitting to
some of what he had done to police detectives but another thing of interest is something that thaad tells detectives
he says at one point when he was able to talk because you had asked earlier about
this girl whoever this girl was and later we find out that the girl that thad saw
was joe's girlfriend or somebody he was dating at the time did you find this when researching this case did you find
that like i i constantly had to keep reminding myself that joe clark joseph clark is 17 at the
time i i had to keep reminding myself that it it's not an adult abducting a teenager
or abducting a kid this is a teenager abducting a teenager and then just to think about
he has to throw this kid over his shoulders um thad said that the the joe carried him
like a baby doesn't even throw him over the shoulders that would be easier to carry i hope nobody's throwing a baby
over their shoulders but carried him like a baby i'm guessing in in two arms in front of him no that's what i'm
saying like it would be easier to you know throw him over your shoulders and carry him
carry him like a baby that takes some strength and is is joe on some kind of drugs
like maybe if he was on like cocaine or speed or some steroid or something but to
grab the foot and twist until it pops that that takes some strength adrenaline's a hell of a drug my friend
that's true too okay so but back to the idea that i'm reminding myself constantly that
joe clark is 17 where's his parents well that's part of the reason why this went down
when it did his parents were out of town and so um the you mentioned that you thought or
wondered if maybe this girlfriend or whomever this girl was if she would have maybe she didn't see
thad but maybe she would have heard him we have thaad telling us that for portions of this time especially when
the assaults are taking place that's that's what's interesting to me too is that thad says that this was
not just one attack one big brutal attack this was he would he would beat this kid and jump
on his legs and twist his ankles and then hours would go by with with no no attack
no brutality oh he had to rest and then he would go back at it eventually but what thad would tell us is that for most
of the time when he's being attacked joe is shoving a towel into the boy's mouth to muffle his
screams and his yells and as we said the parents were out of town and it sounds to me from the very
brief descriptions that i've been able to review from thad's words of what happened and took place during
the 43 hours that he was held captive by joe clark that the girl the girlfriend or whoever she was never
entered the home as far as thad was aware so do we know who this girl was well police know who she is right um we don't
need to know who she is because she wasn't involved in any of the the crimes that were committed we don't
know if it was a relative or not i believe i have reason to believe that it was a girlfriend or somebody that
he was dating that joe clark was dating yeah so thad tells detectives that at one of the points which he you know the
towel's not jammed down is his mouth that he's able to talk he actually asked joe
why he was doing this to him and that's when joe said that he liked busting up bones and added that he had a
fascination with breaking bones and the sound of breaking bones and he told thad that he had done this
twice before and joe asked thad if he knew a boy named chris steiner and thad said he did not so this is
really interesting because not only is thad able to tell police detectives that this guy's saying he's done this before
this guy specifically asked me about a specific person chris steiner [Music] now thad doesn't know joe clark his
abductor and he doesn't know this name chris steiner but he remembered the name chris steiner and
and so through out that ordeal at some point basically according to that story is that joe did this same type of thing
to a boy named chris steiner and some other kid so police armed with this information
and again remember the sheriff's department was already suspicious of chris's death
chris steiner's death so they decide to exhume chris's body and they find that his legs had very
similar injuries and breaks to them and like one prosecutor later would say you don't break your legs like that
drowning in the river right so now joe is going to be charged with attempted murder physical abuse of a
child mayhem causing mental harm to a child in child enticement these are the sock county charges for
the thaad phillips attack interesting that they don't charge him with kidnapping
in that list of charges yeah if you go and you find you know the short version of this story
the summarized version of the story they'll say that he was convicted of attempted murder and kidnapping
the actual charge was child enticement which does make sense because according to the victim at some
point he wakes up and he's told hey there's going we're going to hang out there's going to be a party and
and the victim agrees to go along with it or at least is being polite and willing to
you know chill for a moment right but soon after these charges are leveled against 17 year old joseph clark
the neighboring county of columbia will be looking to charge old joe with first degree murder
for the chris steiner case it was agreed that sauk county that the sauk county case for victim
thaddeus phillips would go to trial first and we already said that it would be a
little over a year before that trial would start now the reason for the delay is due to several things going on in
this case first we have a victim thaad that requires extended hospitalization several surgeries and don't forget that
has rehabilitation that comes with all of that right also we have the defense because after changing the plea a couple
of times joe's defense settles on a plea of not guilty by reason of mental defect mental
defect what's his defect well see this is kind of a smart move in my opinion pizza [ __ ]
right yeah the mental defect is his brain is a piece of [ __ ] that's when the prosecutor
should remind the jury that the prisons are full of pieces of [ __ ] that's where
they go but uh i think this is an interesting angle for the defense and probably a smart move because
look to us regular guys in the garage if i told you there's some dude out there that enjoys breaking people's bones with
his hands and by jumping on them aren't we all going to kind of assume he's mentally deficient in some way right
the boy is nuts well let me go through some of the reasons why they claim that he would be
not guilty by reason of mental defect first we do have his statement to the detectives when he's arrested right
away saying yeah i i don't deny that uh that this kid was at my house but i blinked out for
for a moment and i don't know why and i don't know what happened during that time but when i come to he's he's
clearly in severe pain and injured so he's not necessarily denying that he harmed the
kid he's just saying that he doesn't understand what happened so that does fall into the realm of
of that defense one and then two you have joseph clark's parents that come to his
defense and what their defense of their son is that look we do believe that he had some
mental issues that he possibly could have been insane at the time as far as the way the
legal system would view it insane at the time of this attack or the abduction so
you decide to go on vacation well our boy he's insane so we're gonna go we're gonna go on
vacation right again but it doesn't for that defense to hold up in court often it doesn't need to be
the guy is obviously insane for months years or decades sometimes it can be as simple as
during the course of that actual attack right now again but i'm with i'm with you if
you think that there's already some problems or some issues with your your 17-year-old son
maybe don't leave him alone at the house while you go off on some vacation or business trip or whatever it was i still
wish they would have drug tested joe clark once they arrested him to see if there was anything in his system oh i
bet you there probably was something in his system because alcohol marijuana well yeah because he's coming back it
just before midnight and he was he was off partying he was out on on a date with this girl or going about
out on the evening with this girl and they were stopping off at different parties it looks like a dope
so they couldn't find him because they you know they're out looking for him but they all i think they actively stopped
off at at least one or two teenage parties looking for joe and didn't find him and
left very smartly left a couple of unmarked cars near the home in case he would return and that's
how they end up picking him up well it would also be great if law enforcement would get a bunch of
officers with their billy clubs and they go into a cell and they just blink out for a while
don't know what happened unless this guy really does have some mental issues and
now you're just brutalizing a handicapped individual no you're you're brutalizing a murderer
well whether you have a deficiency or not you are still a murderer correct correct but we
you do understand our society has ways of of handling these types of situations yeah but that wouldn't be that much fun
if i say i i hope they handle this correctly it's a little more fun if you think outside the box you know back to
the killer clowns that show up and uh interrogate people and kick him in the nuts that's still a good
idea so some of the reasons why joe clark's parents say that uh he should be looked at in this
regard not guilty by reasons of mental defect is joseph clark was not their biological son they adopted
him at a very young age and according to his adopted parents when they adopted joe
his his biological mother was a drug addict that was shooting up during the pregnancy
and they had uh evidence of such the other thing that they called into question two and said that when they
started to see a noticeable difference in their son was after joe was involved in a 1993
motorcycle accident he received a pretty severe head injury from that and what his defense will
state at the first trial at the trial in sauk county is that after this motorcycle accident and this head injury
that joe was experiencing hallucinations and he was blacking out and had a lot of uh different kinds of
difficulty after that motorcycle incident now what the prosecution would point out
is that joe clark had a history of violence before this 1993 motorcycle accident
and they traced this back to a 1992 death threat that joseph clark made to one of his teachers
one of his high school teachers and this wasn't just something where you can go oh i was just goofing around you
know kids say dumb stuff right we say dumb stuff here in the garage noted and it's not one of these you know i can
look at a lot of things that that kids get sometimes even charged with and go you
know did could we could we do something different here this person's this person's a kid
and they really weren't doing this to be malicious they were doing it because they're a dumb kid but in this situation
captain it's not something as simple as oh he was just goofing around this death
threat came directly at the teacher by way of joseph clark calling them at their home
and threatening their life so a pretty serious death threat in my opinion and there was also several
witnesses that testified and school records that would back this up that joseph clark was a bully that he bullied
a lot of kids at school and was known for bullying and getting into a lot of fights so
they can say that this 1993 motorcycle accident changed joseph clark however he had a history of violence before
the motorcycle accident even took place [Music] [Music] all right welcome back thanks thanks for being our friends
thank you thanks for letting us when nobody else would you were there all we wanted to do was be your friend and
whisper in your ear okay cheers to everybody everybody in the back so okay a good good defense here though
make it makes sense violence before and then the parents are look the violence before
the adopted parents are trying to their reasoning they had reasons to reason with that
they were hoping he turned around look there might have been some like you said some violence before or some
serious threats before but we've seen this in the past where people have serious head injuries and
they become a whole different person yes and it seems like maybe he wasn't going to act on any of
these things before but maybe this head injury had something to do with it um it's kind of the chicken or the egg
right well and we said captain that joseph clark's adopted parents went to his defense and added to reasons why that
might be a good defense to bring forward in in the thaad case but let's keep in mind
we're going to have two separate trials here right and so his parents were completely outraged and very vocal
publicly about this outrage when he was charged with first degree murder in columbia county which would be the
chris steiner case so clark's adoptive parents are ron and bertha clark they maintain the innocence of their
adopted son as television cameras closed in on them this was after a court appearance
and they stated in regards to the new charges of first-degree murder in columbia county they said that's the
charges they wanted to bring in the first place i want everybody to kind of think keep that in mind because we're
going to kind of circle back to that later as we get some more information quote that's the charges they wanted to
bring in the first place said ron clark dad phillips was just a way to get there
what meaning they wanted to charge joe with something against chris steiner before thad phillips case even happened
and that's the the words of the father that's the charges they wanted to bring in the first place said ron clark thad
phillips the new victim was just a way to get there so basically he's kind of calling out the sheriff's
department saying you know they wanted to do this to my son all to all along now they got
this thad phillips kid in this story and my son's not denying that he didn't harm thad phillips
but what the father is basically saying is he had nothing to do with the chris steiner case that joe had nothing to do
with the chris steiner case and thad phillips this victim in this trial is the way that the sheriff's department
the prosecutors get to charge him with first-degree murder this is this is the most so listen
dumbass thing i've heard the clarks did not dispute their son's involvement in phillips injuries but they denied that
it was torture quote what we're talking about his two kids who got in a fight said ron clark what are you talking
about i look i i'm all for coming to the defense of your child but at some point
you gotta wake up and smell the roses man this this dumb son of a [ __ ] should be
thrown in jail for the rest of his life if he thinks that way he's believing what his son is telling him i'm sure his
son is selling him a big plate of horse [ __ ] and it sounds like he's gobbling it up yeah
one bite at a time in a second though too and he's asking for seconds what we're talking about is two kids who
got in a fight your son is 17 years old this boy is found with 13. 13 yeah his legs are broken in four different places
and this 13 year old is listed to be between 4 foot 10 and 5 foot tall about a hundred pounds
and he's found in your basically your adult son's uh you know at your house he was held
hostage for 43 hours that's a really long fight not only held hostage but joseph clark's
own words to the detectives were yeah i believed that he would die from those injuries
yeah and at no point does he try to like call for help even if he even if he says
i don't know how this happened to this kid right he doesn't try to call for help he doesn't offer him any help
instead what he does is he locks him in a closet upstairs knowing that the boy's
legs are broken thinking you know what he'll probably die in this closet from his injuries eventually or
he can't escape because one i've locked him in the closet and two even if he gets out of here he can't use his legs
to take him anywhere ron and bertha wake up wake up right it's and here's my my big issue there
one the detectives could let you know we couldn't connect we could not connect chris
to your son joe but when when the boys were just having a fight aka when your adopted son was torturing the [ __ ]
i had this 13 year old boy he mentioned this other victim and then when we go back and look at the
injuries oh guess what they just happened to be the same so did those boys just happen to get in a fight
too but guess what ron dick face if that is your last name if your son joe got in a fight with chris
and broke his legs and then threw him in the water and he died from drowning that's called murder
no other way around it well and if we hear that's what they wanted the charges to be in the first
place there's other things going on there we said that about chris steiner's case
that there seems to have been more that they weren't telling the media and in fact i saw statements where
i think they were purposely misleading on what information they were putting out because i think they suspected foul
play and chris steiner's death after they couldn't find a find a party spot along the river plus they already
knew they say they exhumed his body and discovered that his legs were broken they knew that before
they buried him the first time yeah and so what we're going to learn here captain
is a bunch of interesting stuff that comes out at the first trial what we learned at the first trial the attack on
thaad is that on july 29th joseph clark's parents are out of town and this is when he broke into the home of
thad phillips and abducted him while he was asleep apparently one thing that comes out at trial is
that joe saw thad playing outside in the yard earlier over the course of that day and it is
believed that that is when he may have decided to target thaad and again we pointed out that thad woke
up and he's then attacked afterwards and um he thad says that he made a good attempt
to escape multiple times but was caught by joseph clark and this would only anger clark and he would
you know attack him and beat him more as punishment for trying to get away and it was only at the point where
joe clark wanted to go out with his friends and decided hey i'm gonna lock him in
this closet and thad finds a guitar inside the closet and after he's pretty sure that joseph
clark is gone he uses the guitar to beat down the door because the door is locked
from the outside i thought you're gonna say you know thad finds the guitar in the closet
and once he learns how to play wonder wall then he decides to break out of the closet he breaks out of the closet and
he has to throw himself down a flight of stairs because he can't walk and when he's he's down at the bottom of
the stairs he actually blacks out from the pain and he's not certain how long he's out for
but when he comes to he's able to make it to a phone and he says thank god it was one of those phones with the long
cord you know it's hanging up on the wall he can't stand right he said thank god it was one of those
phones with the long cord he pulls the cord to get the phone the handset down and again another stroke of
luck the buttons are on the handset and not on the not on the base that's attached to the
wall so it was only then that he's able to make this 9-1-1 call and what he tells
uh the jury at this trial is that you know not only did clark stuff the towel in his mouth uh when he would beat him
but he was jumping up and down on the kid's legs jumping up and down as hard as he could
at some points um getting a running start and jumping up in the air and coming down with his
knees onto the boy's legs i mean this is kidnapping this is torture well it's going to get
worse this is uh attempted murder and it it's so again there's all these things you know
maybe the universe was working in his favor that day where oh you're locked in this
closet but just so happens to be something on the way out yeah or something there to help you get
out and now you're going to have something in this universe is going to give you the power to get yourself
downstairs and yes you black out but something woke you up before joe comes back and you see what i'm
saying there's so many things that it's like the universe didn't want thad to die now during this 43-hour
period of being abducted some other very very strange things went on according to
trial testimony one being braces at one point joe put braces on thad's legs and forced
him to walk with the broken legs and at another point he would put brand new socks
you know like the the tall long tube socks he had brand new white ones like dozens
of pairs of these brand new white socks that he was putting on the boys feet over the boy's feet and legs right
another weird thing too and this is probably something that maybe thad's parents and the sheriff's
department knew about very quickly was that not only did joe take thad from thad's
home but he he also stole a few pairs of thaad socks from the house as well that's so you
could sniff them well we pointed out in yesterday's show at the top of of the show that we were
going to be discussing a sexual sadist and they get their pleasure from administering torture and seeing the
pain that they're causing an individual and we talked about how in some cases the the offender will even revive
even perform cpr so on some victims to revive them so that they can punish them and torture them more
because a unconscious or dead victim does not give them the gratification that they are seeking right and i've
heard some sick stuff before but flicky flicky because you like breaking bones that's very very strange
yeah at one point during this situation thad says that joe masturbated in front of him so that should if
anybody's out there questioning this sexual sadist that i think would offer you all the proof that you need
yeah the other weird thing too is that when they searched the home in joseph's room they found a notebook
that is described at this trial as a hit list and it had 29 names 29 people were listed in this hit list
and they fell into two different categories one was get to now and the other category was can wait
now thad phillips name was not in either category uh because joseph clark didn't
know who he was it sounds like he had an opportunity saw a boy out playing by himself and thought man i might be able
to sneak into that house and take that kid tonight while my parents are gone because again as we pointed out during
the trailer the torture is the reason for any of the other crimes at all and so this a torture takes
has to take place in in a in a location where you have privacy to do these types of things and
where you can control the situation but i think his joe clark's thought was when
he saw his feet well was boner city well on that hit list uh next to some of the names said
the leg thing like this was a thing that he enjoys and a thing that he intended to
do to some of these people that fell into one of two categories get to now which i'm assuming means
abduct them and hurt them and kill them as soon as possible and can wait are people that hey maybe i need to do a
little more reconnaissance on because we know that if he was involved in chris steiner's
abduction and murder that he probably had some general information about oh well the brother is sleeping at
somebody else's house knows how to get to chris steiner's room i wonder if chris steiner had missing
socks as well from that house because what we do see is that chris steiner's name did
fall into one of those two categories on that quote-unquote hit list that was found in the notebook in joseph clark's
room yeah the other thing that we learn this is at the second trial okay this is the second trial where it's
the first degree murder charges for the death of chris steiner we learn that steiner's parents
told what was left out from the media version of the day before events of when chris went missing right was
that he hung out with a local boy the day before and who was it oh it was joseph clark
the two knew each other they were friends so very likely if those muddy footprints
did exist it was joseph clark going into their home in the middle of night and he may
not have had to carry the 14 year old out of there that night he may have been able to wake
him up and say hey why don't you come outside with me for a little bit why don't we go hang out for a little
bit but a fetish like this i mean there has to be some serious trauma and i i really like to see those
psychology reports on on joseph clark could be i i don't know um we often look at these situations and ask ourselves
why were there any red flags how can we identify this before it happens to somebody else
and it's really the answer is all over the shop you do see severe abuse in some of these people
that grow up to do these type of things and other times you see people with perfect childhoods right um you know
it's very difficult to explain why one person is sexually attracted to or or sexually excited by something
and another person is not and another person might be sexually excited by something completely
different it's very it's very difficult to understand why that is again we're all very unique
individuals with with different tastes different likes and and what have you now
as far as the trial goes the the first trial was done with and went down in september of
1996 this trial is the most important because this trial is basically going to set up
what they need for the second trial where they charge him with first degree so at this trial they have the famous
park deets plus another psychologist who testify and both of them testified that joseph clark was sane during the
time of the attack on thad phillips and park dietz is the one that actively names him as a sexual sadist
during the trial right i think the judge might have thrown that portion out regardless park dietz said that while on
the stand so joseph clark was found to be seen at trial by unanimous decision in a
deliberation that took only one hour and he would be sentenced weeks later so he
ends up being convicted on all of the charges that we mentioned in thad's case and sentenced to 110 years in prison
of course now we're going to go to columbia county where joseph clark is facing first degree murder
charges for the abduction and murder of 14 year old chris steiner at this trial it's mostly circumstantial
evidence that is being presented there was some interesting things that came out
uh again most interesting to me the most interesting statement was that from the
parents saying steiner hung out with clark the day before he was found guilty and sentenced to
life for the murder of chris steiner he was also successfully sued by thad phillips
parents forcing him to pay 21 million in damages obviously he's a a prisoner of the state
he will never earn 21 million dollars to be able to pay that back but um 21 million dollars in damages gives you
some idea of the medical cost involved in the surgeries and rehabilitation and hospitalization of
thaad phillips there was a 1998 appeal filed by joseph clark against his convictions
which was rejected by the district court some other weird things in this case here captain thad phillips was actually
shot at some point by this was after after joseph clark was sentenced i'm sorry after he was found to be
guilty uh in october of 1996 on october 8th thad phillips was shot by michael hubes
i think is how you say his name hibbs i'll try that that's i looked it up and that's how
they told me to say that last name it's a difficult last name obviously for me maybe not for others but
this michael kidd shot thad phillips on the 8th and i don't know the outcome of that situation i know that they
wanted to charge this michael kidd with attempted murder but the defense was that
thad phillips and some other kid went into michael's home to beat him up and that this was
more of a self-defense type of situation where the kid was holding the gun and shot either shot at a door or the gun
went off the result was four wounds to the back shoulder front shoulder neck and cheek
of thad phillips but in all fairness we need to point out that a judge granted a restraining order
to keep thad phillips and that friend away from this michael kid and his little brother so there may be some
weight to that the self-defense claims in that case if people have heard of this case before
they've probably heard it from the i survived show that's uh is that on discovery id i
believe i believe the id channel i believe it's on a e and it's there that if you view that
episode you can see and hear thad talking about the abduction and the torture that followed and one of the
most horrifying lines that thad says on there is that joseph clark grabbed his right ankle
with both of his hands and twisted his foot he felt it break like a quick snapping
sound and when he looked down he could see that the skin around his ankles looked like a twisted up rubber
band [Music] thank you guys so much for joining us here in the garage if you need more true
crime garage and you do need more i know you need more go check out off the record on stitcher
premium you're going to love it colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week
this week we are recommending one i'm sure many of our listeners have heard of and probably have already read but it's
a really good one and long overdue so we are recommending the devil in the white
city by eric lawson this is a new york times bestseller about the city of chicago the 1893 world's fair and dr
henry h holmes better known as serial killer hh homes check out this great title and many more recommendations on
our recommended page at truecrimegarage.com and until next week be good be kind and
don't listen [Music] you

The Bonebreaker Killer /// Part 2 /// 513

Part 1 of 2

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

Baraboo, Wisconsin; July 4th 1994 - A teenager disappears in the middle of the night. A week later his body is recovered from the Wisconsin River. Another teen disappears in an eerily similar set of circumstances just one year later. Then the Sheriff’s department receives a bizarre 911 call that sets off a chain of events that rocks the town of Baraboo.

Beer of the Week - Grey Monday 2021 by The Bruery Garage Grade - 4 and a quarter bottle caps out of 5

Our show - True Crime Garage “Off the Record” is available only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Brief Summary

Thaddeus Phillips was abducted and tortured by Joseph Clark, leading to a complex trial and investigation into Clark's past crimes.

Key points

Trial Delays. The trial for Joseph Clark is delayed due to Thad's hospitalization and surgeries.
Confession and Denial. Clark admits to bringing Thad home but claims he doesn't remember the assault.
The Arrest of Joseph Clark. Seventeen-year-old Joseph Clark is arrested after the abduction of Thaddeus Phillips, who is severely injured.
Chilling Fascination. Thad reveals that Joe expressed a disturbing interest in breaking bones.
Joseph Clark's Troubling Past. Joseph Clark had a history of violence before his motorcycle accident, raising questions about his mental state.
The Abduction of Thad Phillips. Joseph Clark abducted Thad Phillips while his parents were out of town, leading to a harrowing ordeal.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I blinked out for a while.

Joe Clark's confession about the incident.

4:58WatchAug 12, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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