Maddie Clifton was born in Jacksonville Florida in 1990 on the 17th of June she had a sister called Jessie and her parents were Steve and Sheila. on the 3rd of November 1998 she came home at around 4:30 and practices on the piano for a short while and then bounded out of her home calling to her mum that she will be back for dinner. She was seen hitting some golf balls and then spotted heading back home to gather some more golf balls. A neighbour did claim to have seen a boy named Joshua Phillips "creeping up" to her but these are the last sightings.

At 6:20 her mum started to call for her and try to bring her back for dinner but after some searching and asking around she became worried and called 911 at 6:33. She was last seen wearing a red YMCA basketball shirt with maddie and the number 5 on the back of it, blue shorts and black tennis shoes. For the next six days many police and neighbour and other volunteers searched tirelessly joining the search was the boy that lived across the street Joshua Phillips, he was born in March 1984 in Allentown Pensylvania and was later moved to Jacksonville by his parents Steve his father who it was said he was very scared of as he was abusive to Joshua and his mother Melisa his father did not allow anyone over to play while he was out and also was said to have a hatred for girls a contrast to Joshua who was know as quiet and friendly.

On the 10th of November 1998 Maddie's parents were recording a TV interview when across the street Joshua's mum was heading up to her sons room to clean up as she had noticed a smell coming from there, she thought it to come from the birds kept in his room. In the room she noticed a puddle of liquid just below the waterbed and knelt down to take a closer look on doing so she noticed that the side of the bed was taped up and appeared to be broken, she noticed that inside the broken part were what appeared to be socks on feet she realised that it was the body of Maddie and rushed across the street to alert some police that were canvassing the neighbourhood. The police entered Joshua's room and noticed a large amount of air fresheners some rolls of tape, a baseball bat hidden behind the dresser and a leatherman knife. Maddie's body was removed from the bed and it was noted her shirt was pulled up and her underwear was beneath her.

Police headed to Joshua's school and arrested him on bringing him to the station he confessed to murdering Maddie, He claimed that they we playing in the back yard and he accidently hit a ball to hard and it hit Maddie near her left eye she was bleeding and crying loudly so her took her upstairs to his room as time went on and she was still being very loud he became worried that his dad would come home and he would be in a lot of trouble for having Maddie over so he hit her on the head 2/3 times with a bat to make her stop crying. Instead of becoming quiet she started moaning loudly and he took his knife and cut her throat he stuffed her in the bottom of his waterbed but again a short while later noticed that he could hear her breathing again worried his dad, who was home by now, would hear he pulled her back out and stabbed her lungs repeatedly to kill her and stop the noise. He claimed that the clothes got all messed up when he was getting her in and out of the bed. In trial the coroner stated that she was hit on the head 3 times which would have killed her in 30mins but then in a separate attack her windpipe was perforated and she would have bleed out or drowned on the blood from that and then it was another separate attack that 9 stab wounds occurred and that 2 of these 9 stab wounds occurred after her death a detail confused me that it was said she was found gripping a support in the bed frame but if two wounds occurred when she was dead im unsure how she could have then be put back in the bed and then while dead she grabbed part of the framing. Maybe i misread or misunderstood this point but it is stated in more that one article/story about her death.

Joshua was tried as an adult but due to his age could not be given the death penalty his attorney called no witnesses and his case was trying to get him convicted for manslaughter and not murder. The jury deliberated for 2 hours and he was found to be guilty of 1st degree murder and given a life sentence.