Maddie Clifton

Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips (born March 17, 1984) is an American who was convicted of murder as a child.

Phillips was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on March 17, 1984, to Steve and Melissa Phillips.

Steve, a drug addict and alcoholic, was violent towards Phillips and Melissa, who both reported living in fear of him.

Steve imposed strict rules on his son, got angry if he had other children in the house when he was not present, and particularly disliked young girls; Melissa said she never understood why her husband disliked girls.

Eventually, Steve decided to relocate the family from Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania to Florida, separating Josh from his half-brothers Daniel and Benjie.

In November 1998, when he was 14 years old, Phillips killed Maddie Clifton, his 8-year-old friend and neighbor.

The following year, he was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Phillips stated that he killed Clifton to stop her from crying after she was accidentally struck with a baseball while they were playing, and that he feared punishment from his abusive father.

Although elements of Phillips's story are disputed, officials who were involved in his prosecution have subsequently expressed contrition over the severity of his sentence.

In November 1998, Phillips was 14 years old and living with his family in Jacksonville, Florida.

Neighbors described Phillips as "quiet and friendly".

According to Maddie Clifton's mother, Phillips and her daughter were friends and she never had any reason to be afraid of him.

Phillips had no arrests or history of violence prior to the murder.

His school teacher said he was a popular student who did not stand out, describing him as fun and silly.

According to Phillips, on November 3, 1998, he was home alone when Maddie Clifton, who lived across the road from the Phillips, came to his house asking him to come outside and play baseball.

Phillips agreed, even though he was not allowed to have friends over while his parents were not home.

As the two were playing baseball, Phillips accidentally hit the ball into Clifton's eye, causing her to bleed, cry, and scream.

Phillips panicked, knowing his father would be home soon and fearing his reaction.

Phillips dragged Clifton into his house, saying that the clothing came off Clifton's lower body as he did so.

He hit her with the baseball bat to stop her from screaming before putting her under the base of his bed.

When Steve returned home, Phillips interacted with him for a period of time before returning to his room.

When Phillips discovered that Clifton was still alive and moaning under his bed, he removed the mattress, cut her throat, and stabbed her in the chest seven times with the knife from a Leatherman tool, killing her.

Clifton's disappearance was reported around 5:00pm that day.

Police and volunteers searched for Clifton for six days; Phillips participated in the search.

He later stated he spent the following week living in denial, saying, "I was putting myself in a fantasy world that nothing had happened. That was my defense mechanism for everything when I was a kid. I never made the decision... to ignore it. I just did."

On November 10, Melissa Phillips went into her son's room and noticed a wet spot on the floor.

She searched the room and found Clifton's body, immediately leaving the house to report the incident to the police.

Phillips was arrested later that day at his school and confessed to the murder within hours.

Prosecutors disputed some parts of Phillips' story.

State Attorney Harry Shorstein suggested the murder may have been sexually motivated, saying that Phillips had talked about sexual matters with both Maddie Clifton and her older sister.

The autopsy found no evidence of sexual assault, though prosecutors argued the lack of dirt and sand on Clifton's body did not support Phillips' assertion that her clothes came off as he dragged her into his room.

Prosecutors also noted that no blood was found in the backyard, or on the baseball that Phillips said he had struck Clifton with, and argued that this did not support his version of events.

Phillips was tried as an adult.

The trial was moved from Duval County, Florida, to Polk County over concerns about the publicity in Jacksonville.

Phillips's lawyer, Richard D. Nichols, did not call a single witness for the defense, a move the prosecutors later said was a surprising and risky strategy.

Nichols intended to base much of the defense on a closing argument to the jury, where he stated Clifton's death was "an act that began as an accident and deteriorated through panic that bordered on madness".

According to Phillips, Nichols never attempted to question him over the events of the murder, and only played chess with him when visiting him in prison prior to the trial.

Melissa Phillips disagreed with Nichols's strategy, though Steve insisted on letting the lawyer do as he pleased.

Nichols discouraged Phillips' parents from allowing him to testify.

In 2017, Phillips was re-sentenced to life in prison on appeal, but he has been eligible for re-sentencing as of 2023.