00:00:07
[Music] so [Music] [Music] welcome to true crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
00:00:44
listening i'm your host nick and with me as always as a man with plans for the future i guess their futuristic plans
00:00:51
here is the captain yeah call me captain mcfly it's good to be seen it's good to
00:00:57
see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend [Music] today we are casually sipping on a gray
00:01:08
monday that's right you can kick those monday blues with gray monday this is an imperial style featuring oregon grown
00:01:15
hazelnuts toasty and nutty flavors play off bold yet smooth complexity in this bourbon barrel aged imperial stout
00:01:24
garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five and let's give some praise and
00:01:29
thank you to our friends that helped us out with this week's beer run first up a
00:01:34
big cheers and a ron swanson please and thank you goes out to mark from london london united kingdom a big shout out to
00:01:43
fiona and kill dare ireland here's the cheers to don in san diego california stay classy and a big
00:01:50
shout out to margaret in lansing michigan next up we have a cheers to jolene in omaha nebraska and last but
00:01:58
certainly not least we have traeger in northern alaska everyone we just mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com
00:02:06
and they helped us out with this week's beer fun yeah bwr you and beer ron jolene jolene jolene jolene
00:02:17
jolene donated to the beer fun and she's cooler than you are and that is enough of the business all
00:02:24
right everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
00:02:30
[Music] so [Music] immediately after the arrest of seventeen-year-old joseph clark in the
00:02:58
rescue of thirteen-year-old thaddeus phillips we have joe in jail waiting to be charged
00:03:04
we have thaad in the hospital undergoing multiple surgeries and as far as what was being released to the public early
00:03:12
on there were just mostly small details coming from thad's father dawn as he answered reporters questions
00:03:20
while pretty much living at the hospital for days while doctors and nurses worked
00:03:24
to repair his boy don told reporters that neither he nor thad knew the boy joe clark prior to this incident so we
00:03:31
can rule out any kind of personal motive for the abduction and the harm caused to thaad
00:03:38
don told reporters that thad's captor brutalized and tortured the boy in the form of beatings that involved joe
00:03:45
choking punching as well as twisting the boy's ankles and legs and jumping up and down
00:03:52
on thad's legs according to don joe told thad that he had kidnapped the boy because he liked
00:03:58
busting people's bones and that he had done this type of thing before to other victims
00:04:05
now all kinds of interesting details will come out at the trial but the trial won't take place until the second half
00:04:12
of 1996. right now on our timeline we are in the early part of august 1995. so almost exactly 26 years ago
00:04:25
to this day but before we get to the trial let's talk more about this arrest because joe after he is arrested
00:04:35
he actually confesses to the police well sort of so he admits that he brought thad to his
00:04:43
house but says it was for the purposes of just hanging out he tells detectives that he does not
00:04:50
remember assaulting thad joe says he and this is his words quote blinked out for a while
00:04:59
and when he came to thad was lying on the floor bellyaching about his legs joe says he thought thad would
00:05:07
eventually die from the injuries so the way i take it is this his general statement is he does not know how
00:05:18
the 13 year old thaad received these injuries thad tells joe that he did that to thad
00:05:26
and joe says he tried to help the kid but again did think that thaad would eventually
00:05:32
die from these injuries so he says he tried to help thad but at the same time it doesn't look
00:05:38
like he was willing to let him go yeah but if you're inviting somebody over to hang out
00:05:45
quote-unquote like joe's saying you don't abduct them from their house and then on top of that
00:05:53
this blink out you blinked out for 43 hours as you tortured this kid joe clark sounds like an animal
00:06:05
well a monster really i mean to call him an animal is disrespectful to our our friends the animals animals but
00:06:13
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
00:06:18
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
00:06:27
didn't at least do something or have some part in this and so we've seen this it's very typical
00:06:35
behavior of any of the other psychopaths or psychopathic killers that we have talked about in the past where often
00:06:44
they will admit to some stuff especially if they're backed into a corner and that's exactly what we have here joe
00:06:50
clark is basically caught red-handed with his victim inside his residence and you're going to get a very different
00:06:58
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
00:07:06
right he says i woke up and this guy was carrying me into his home and when we got there
00:07:14
joe kind of relaxes thad by telling him hey i brought you over here because i'm having a little party
00:07:21
and you know here's some people that are going to be coming over in a little bit
00:07:25
and that actually says that that joe referenced at least one or two names of people that he knew
00:07:33
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
00:07:39
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
00:07:47
let's keep in mind he's only 13. you can trick 13 year olds adults can be tricked
00:07:52
very easily sometimes as well so i was tricked into doing a podcast once about 530 times yeah so
00:08:02
it's not until later you know after some i want to stay on something because you
00:08:07
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
00:08:18
do you think that maybe he used some kind of you know gas on the rag trick no this guy went
00:08:26
into the phillips home and carried the boy out and carried him to his residence wow in
00:08:32
fact when he first started to wake up thad said that he thought that he assumed it was his father carrying him
00:08:38
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
00:08:45
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
00:08:53
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
00:08:58
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
00:09:06
is he transporting him with a vehicle no he carried him from from tha phillips house to his house and
00:09:13
again we know that there was some torture that was going on we will know that and learn that later
00:09:21
because they're not very specific about the injuries early on and it's not fully
00:09:27
understood that all of these injuries took place over the course of hours you know the way
00:09:32
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
00:09:40
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
00:09:51
of hanging out and i don't know what happened i i his words again i blinked out and then when
00:09:57
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
00:10:06
legs so of course two very differing stories now when we talk about thad's injuries
00:10:13
there was mention that he was probably going to die from those injuries we have that statement from
00:10:19
joe clark who says to police yeah when i saw the state that he was in i believed he would eventually die from
00:10:28
whatever happened to him from those injuries well let's back that information up
00:10:32
because we have doctors that later told thad and thad's family that in fact he was only hours away from
00:10:39
dying from internal bleeding wow in fact the medical professionals said that the
00:10:45
only time that they see people as severely injured as thaad was when he was brought into the er
00:10:52
is when they get people rushed in from really bad car accidents because as you pointed out in
00:10:59
yesterday's episode captain the femur bone is very difficult to break it takes a lot of pounds of pressure to
00:11:08
break the ankles you know these are difficult injuries and severe injuries and you were
00:11:15
basically saying that both ankles were broken and [Music] both femurs were broken one femur broke
00:11:22
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
00:11:30
again not a doctor still working on that degree but um played one on tv once the pins were
00:11:38
probably for one of the ankles and the rod my guess would be for the femur now we talked about joe admitting to
00:11:46
some of what he had done to police detectives but another thing of interest is something that thaad tells detectives
00:11:53
he says at one point when he was able to talk because you had asked earlier about
00:12:04
this girl whoever this girl was and later we find out that the girl that thad saw
00:12:11
was joe's girlfriend or somebody he was dating at the time did you find this when researching this case did you find
00:12:20
that like i i constantly had to keep reminding myself that joe clark joseph clark is 17 at the
00:12:28
time i i had to keep reminding myself that it it's not an adult abducting a teenager
00:12:35
or abducting a kid this is a teenager abducting a teenager and then just to think about
00:12:44
he has to throw this kid over his shoulders um thad said that the the joe carried him
00:12:51
like a baby doesn't even throw him over the shoulders that would be easier to carry i hope nobody's throwing a baby
00:12:59
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
00:13:04
saying like it would be easier to you know throw him over your shoulders and carry him
00:13:09
carry him like a baby that takes some strength and is is joe on some kind of drugs
00:13:15
like maybe if he was on like cocaine or speed or some steroid or something but to
00:13:23
grab the foot and twist until it pops that that takes some strength adrenaline's a hell of a drug my friend
00:13:34
that's true too okay so but back to the idea that i'm reminding myself constantly that
00:13:41
joe clark is 17 where's his parents well that's part of the reason why this went down
00:13:49
when it did his parents were out of town and so um the you mentioned that you thought or
00:13:59
wondered if maybe this girlfriend or whomever this girl was if she would have maybe she didn't see
00:14:06
thad but maybe she would have heard him we have thaad telling us that for portions of this time especially when
00:14:14
the assaults are taking place that's that's what's interesting to me too is that thad says that this was
00:14:21
not just one attack one big brutal attack this was he would he would beat this kid and jump
00:14:28
on his legs and twist his ankles and then hours would go by with with no no attack
00:14:35
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
00:14:43
of the time when he's being attacked joe is shoving a towel into the boy's mouth to muffle his
00:14:51
screams and his yells and as we said the parents were out of town and it sounds to me from the very
00:14:58
brief descriptions that i've been able to review from thad's words of what happened and took place during
00:15:05
the 43 hours that he was held captive by joe clark that the girl the girlfriend or whoever she was never
00:15:15
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
00:15:25
need to know who she is because she wasn't involved in any of the the crimes that were committed we don't
00:15:30
know if it was a relative or not i believe i have reason to believe that it was a girlfriend or somebody that
00:15:36
he was dating that joe clark was dating yeah so thad tells detectives that at one of the points which he you know the
00:15:43
towel's not jammed down is his mouth that he's able to talk he actually asked joe
00:15:50
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
00:15:57
fascination with breaking bones and the sound of breaking bones and he told thad that he had done this
00:16:03
twice before and joe asked thad if he knew a boy named chris steiner and thad said he did not so this is
00:16:12
really interesting because not only is thad able to tell police detectives that this guy's saying he's done this before
00:16:21
this guy specifically asked me about a specific person chris steiner [Music] now thad doesn't know joe clark his
00:16:31
abductor and he doesn't know this name chris steiner but he remembered the name chris steiner and
00:16:37
and so through out that ordeal at some point basically according to that story is that joe did this same type of thing
00:16:44
to a boy named chris steiner and some other kid so police armed with this information
00:16:50
and again remember the sheriff's department was already suspicious of chris's death
00:16:56
chris steiner's death so they decide to exhume chris's body and they find that his legs had very
00:17:04
similar injuries and breaks to them and like one prosecutor later would say you don't break your legs like that
00:17:13
drowning in the river right so now joe is going to be charged with attempted murder physical abuse of a
00:17:24
child mayhem causing mental harm to a child in child enticement these are the sock county charges for
00:17:33
the thaad phillips attack interesting that they don't charge him with kidnapping
00:17:39
in that list of charges yeah if you go and you find you know the short version of this story
00:17:45
the summarized version of the story they'll say that he was convicted of attempted murder and kidnapping
00:17:53
the actual charge was child enticement which does make sense because according to the victim at some
00:18:00
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
00:18:06
and the victim agrees to go along with it or at least is being polite and willing to
00:18:14
you know chill for a moment right but soon after these charges are leveled against 17 year old joseph clark
00:18:21
the neighboring county of columbia will be looking to charge old joe with first degree murder
00:18:28
for the chris steiner case it was agreed that sauk county that the sauk county case for victim
00:18:37
thaddeus phillips would go to trial first and we already said that it would be a
00:18:43
little over a year before that trial would start now the reason for the delay is due to several things going on in
00:18:50
this case first we have a victim thaad that requires extended hospitalization several surgeries and don't forget that
00:19:00
has rehabilitation that comes with all of that right also we have the defense because after changing the plea a couple
00:19:11
of times joe's defense settles on a plea of not guilty by reason of mental defect mental
00:19:18
defect what's his defect well see this is kind of a smart move in my opinion pizza [ __ ]
00:19:27
right yeah the mental defect is his brain is a piece of [ __ ] that's when the prosecutor
00:19:32
should remind the jury that the prisons are full of pieces of [ __ ] that's where
00:19:37
they go but uh i think this is an interesting angle for the defense and probably a smart move because
00:19:45
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
00:19:52
his hands and by jumping on them aren't we all going to kind of assume he's mentally deficient in some way right
00:20:01
the boy is nuts well let me go through some of the reasons why they claim that he would be
00:20:09
not guilty by reason of mental defect first we do have his statement to the detectives when he's arrested right
00:20:17
away saying yeah i i don't deny that uh that this kid was at my house but i blinked out for
00:20:28
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
00:20:33
clearly in severe pain and injured so he's not necessarily denying that he harmed the
00:20:40
kid he's just saying that he doesn't understand what happened so that does fall into the realm of
00:20:48
of that defense one and then two you have joseph clark's parents that come to his
00:20:56
defense and what their defense of their son is that look we do believe that he had some
00:21:04
mental issues that he possibly could have been insane at the time as far as the way the
00:21:10
legal system would view it insane at the time of this attack or the abduction so
00:21:15
you decide to go on vacation well our boy he's insane so we're gonna go we're gonna go on
00:21:23
vacation right again but it doesn't for that defense to hold up in court often it doesn't need to be
00:21:32
the guy is obviously insane for months years or decades sometimes it can be as simple as
00:21:38
during the course of that actual attack right now again but i'm with i'm with you if
00:21:45
you think that there's already some problems or some issues with your your 17-year-old son
00:21:52
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
00:22:00
wish they would have drug tested joe clark once they arrested him to see if there was anything in his system oh i
00:22:08
bet you there probably was something in his system because alcohol marijuana well yeah because he's coming back it
00:22:14
just before midnight and he was he was off partying he was out on on a date with this girl or going about
00:22:25
out on the evening with this girl and they were stopping off at different parties it looks like a dope
00:22:31
so they couldn't find him because they you know they're out looking for him but they all i think they actively stopped
00:22:37
off at at least one or two teenage parties looking for joe and didn't find him and
00:22:42
left very smartly left a couple of unmarked cars near the home in case he would return and that's
00:22:48
how they end up picking him up well it would also be great if law enforcement would get a bunch of
00:22:54
officers with their billy clubs and they go into a cell and they just blink out for a while
00:23:00
don't know what happened unless this guy really does have some mental issues and
00:23:04
now you're just brutalizing a handicapped individual no you're you're brutalizing a murderer
00:23:12
well whether you have a deficiency or not you are still a murderer correct correct but we
00:23:19
you do understand our society has ways of of handling these types of situations yeah but that wouldn't be that much fun
00:23:28
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
00:23:35
the killer clowns that show up and uh interrogate people and kick him in the nuts that's still a good
00:23:41
idea so some of the reasons why joe clark's parents say that uh he should be looked at in this
00:23:48
regard not guilty by reasons of mental defect is joseph clark was not their biological son they adopted
00:23:58
him at a very young age and according to his adopted parents when they adopted joe
00:24:07
his his biological mother was a drug addict that was shooting up during the pregnancy
00:24:16
and they had uh evidence of such the other thing that they called into question two and said that when they
00:24:23
started to see a noticeable difference in their son was after joe was involved in a 1993
00:24:31
motorcycle accident he received a pretty severe head injury from that and what his defense will
00:24:39
state at the first trial at the trial in sauk county is that after this motorcycle accident and this head injury
00:24:50
that joe was experiencing hallucinations and he was blacking out and had a lot of uh different kinds of
00:24:59
difficulty after that motorcycle incident now what the prosecution would point out
00:25:06
is that joe clark had a history of violence before this 1993 motorcycle accident
00:25:15
and they traced this back to a 1992 death threat that joseph clark made to one of his teachers
00:25:24
one of his high school teachers and this wasn't just something where you can go oh i was just goofing around you
00:25:31
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
00:25:40
look at a lot of things that that kids get sometimes even charged with and go you
00:25:45
know did could we could we do something different here this person's this person's a kid
00:25:50
and they really weren't doing this to be malicious they were doing it because they're a dumb kid but in this situation
00:25:59
captain it's not something as simple as oh he was just goofing around this death
00:26:03
threat came directly at the teacher by way of joseph clark calling them at their home
00:26:11
and threatening their life so a pretty serious death threat in my opinion and there was also several
00:26:19
witnesses that testified and school records that would back this up that joseph clark was a bully that he bullied
00:26:28
a lot of kids at school and was known for bullying and getting into a lot of fights so
00:26:35
they can say that this 1993 motorcycle accident changed joseph clark however he had a history of violence before
00:26:43
the motorcycle accident even took place [Music] [Music] all right welcome back thanks thanks for being our friends
00:27:16
thank you thanks for letting us when nobody else would you were there all we wanted to do was be your friend and
00:27:24
whisper in your ear okay cheers to everybody everybody in the back so okay a good good defense here though
00:27:33
make it makes sense violence before and then the parents are look the violence before
00:27:40
the adopted parents are trying to their reasoning they had reasons to reason with that
00:27:49
they were hoping he turned around look there might have been some like you said some violence before or some
00:27:57
serious threats before but we've seen this in the past where people have serious head injuries and
00:28:05
they become a whole different person yes and it seems like maybe he wasn't going to act on any of
00:28:15
these things before but maybe this head injury had something to do with it um it's kind of the chicken or the egg
00:28:24
right well and we said captain that joseph clark's adopted parents went to his defense and added to reasons why that
00:28:32
might be a good defense to bring forward in in the thaad case but let's keep in mind
00:28:38
we're going to have two separate trials here right and so his parents were completely outraged and very vocal
00:28:46
publicly about this outrage when he was charged with first degree murder in columbia county which would be the
00:28:54
chris steiner case so clark's adoptive parents are ron and bertha clark they maintain the innocence of their
00:29:02
adopted son as television cameras closed in on them this was after a court appearance
00:29:09
and they stated in regards to the new charges of first-degree murder in columbia county they said that's the
00:29:17
charges they wanted to bring in the first place i want everybody to kind of think keep that in mind because we're
00:29:24
going to kind of circle back to that later as we get some more information quote that's the charges they wanted to
00:29:30
bring in the first place said ron clark dad phillips was just a way to get there
00:29:38
what meaning they wanted to charge joe with something against chris steiner before thad phillips case even happened
00:29:51
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
00:29:58
phillips the new victim was just a way to get there so basically he's kind of calling out the sheriff's
00:30:04
department saying you know they wanted to do this to my son all to all along now they got
00:30:10
this thad phillips kid in this story and my son's not denying that he didn't harm thad phillips
00:30:19
but what the father is basically saying is he had nothing to do with the chris steiner case that joe had nothing to do
00:30:26
with the chris steiner case and thad phillips this victim in this trial is the way that the sheriff's department
00:30:31
the prosecutors get to charge him with first-degree murder this is this is the most so listen
00:30:37
dumbass thing i've heard the clarks did not dispute their son's involvement in phillips injuries but they denied that
00:30:44
it was torture quote what we're talking about his two kids who got in a fight said ron clark what are you talking
00:30:55
about i look i i'm all for coming to the defense of your child but at some point
00:31:03
you gotta wake up and smell the roses man this this dumb son of a [ __ ] should be
00:31:09
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
00:31:16
son is selling him a big plate of horse [ __ ] and it sounds like he's gobbling it up yeah
00:31:22
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
00:31:30
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
00:31:40
and this 13 year old is listed to be between 4 foot 10 and 5 foot tall about a hundred pounds
00:31:47
and he's found in your basically your adult son's uh you know at your house he was held
00:31:55
hostage for 43 hours that's a really long fight not only held hostage but joseph clark's
00:32:06
own words to the detectives were yeah i believed that he would die from those injuries
00:32:13
yeah and at no point does he try to like call for help even if he even if he says
00:32:18
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
00:32:23
instead what he does is he locks him in a closet upstairs knowing that the boy's
00:32:28
legs are broken thinking you know what he'll probably die in this closet from his injuries eventually or
00:32:35
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
00:32:41
to take him anywhere ron and bertha wake up wake up right it's and here's my my big issue there
00:32:54
one the detectives could let you know we couldn't connect we could not connect chris
00:33:04
to your son joe but when when the boys were just having a fight aka when your adopted son was torturing the [ __ ]
00:33:16
i had this 13 year old boy he mentioned this other victim and then when we go back and look at the
00:33:25
injuries oh guess what they just happened to be the same so did those boys just happen to get in a fight
00:33:32
too but guess what ron dick face if that is your last name if your son joe got in a fight with chris
00:33:44
and broke his legs and then threw him in the water and he died from drowning that's called murder
00:33:52
no other way around it well and if we hear that's what they wanted the charges to be in the first
00:33:59
place there's other things going on there we said that about chris steiner's case
00:34:05
that there seems to have been more that they weren't telling the media and in fact i saw statements where
00:34:12
i think they were purposely misleading on what information they were putting out because i think they suspected foul
00:34:20
play and chris steiner's death after they couldn't find a find a party spot along the river plus they already
00:34:27
knew they say they exhumed his body and discovered that his legs were broken they knew that before
00:34:32
they buried him the first time yeah and so what we're going to learn here captain
00:34:37
is a bunch of interesting stuff that comes out at the first trial what we learned at the first trial the attack on
00:34:42
thaad is that on july 29th joseph clark's parents are out of town and this is when he broke into the home of
00:34:51
thad phillips and abducted him while he was asleep apparently one thing that comes out at trial is
00:34:58
that joe saw thad playing outside in the yard earlier over the course of that day and it is
00:35:05
believed that that is when he may have decided to target thaad and again we pointed out that thad woke
00:35:11
up and he's then attacked afterwards and um he thad says that he made a good attempt
00:35:22
to escape multiple times but was caught by joseph clark and this would only anger clark and he would
00:35:31
you know attack him and beat him more as punishment for trying to get away and it was only at the point where
00:35:40
joe clark wanted to go out with his friends and decided hey i'm gonna lock him in
00:35:45
this closet and thad finds a guitar inside the closet and after he's pretty sure that joseph
00:35:52
clark is gone he uses the guitar to beat down the door because the door is locked
00:35:57
from the outside i thought you're gonna say you know thad finds the guitar in the closet
00:36:03
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
00:36:10
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
00:36:18
the stairs he actually blacks out from the pain and he's not certain how long he's out for
00:36:26
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
00:36:33
cord you know it's hanging up on the wall he can't stand right he said thank god it was one of those
00:36:38
phones with the long cord he pulls the cord to get the phone the handset down and again another stroke of
00:36:46
luck the buttons are on the handset and not on the not on the base that's attached to the
00:36:52
wall so it was only then that he's able to make this 9-1-1 call and what he tells
00:36:58
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
00:37:06
but he was jumping up and down on the kid's legs jumping up and down as hard as he could
00:37:13
at some points um getting a running start and jumping up in the air and coming down with his
00:37:19
knees onto the boy's legs i mean this is kidnapping this is torture well it's going to get
00:37:25
worse this is uh attempted murder and it it's so again there's all these things you know
00:37:34
maybe the universe was working in his favor that day where oh you're locked in this
00:37:40
closet but just so happens to be something on the way out yeah or something there to help you get
00:37:49
out and now you're going to have something in this universe is going to give you the power to get yourself
00:37:56
downstairs and yes you black out but something woke you up before joe comes back and you see what i'm
00:38:06
saying there's so many things that it's like the universe didn't want thad to die now during this 43-hour
00:38:15
period of being abducted some other very very strange things went on according to
00:38:21
trial testimony one being braces at one point joe put braces on thad's legs and forced
00:38:32
him to walk with the broken legs and at another point he would put brand new socks
00:38:40
you know like the the tall long tube socks he had brand new white ones like dozens
00:38:47
of pairs of these brand new white socks that he was putting on the boys feet over the boy's feet and legs right
00:38:54
another weird thing too and this is probably something that maybe thad's parents and the sheriff's
00:39:01
department knew about very quickly was that not only did joe take thad from thad's
00:39:08
home but he he also stole a few pairs of thaad socks from the house as well that's so you
00:39:16
could sniff them well we pointed out in yesterday's show at the top of of the show that we were
00:39:22
going to be discussing a sexual sadist and they get their pleasure from administering torture and seeing the
00:39:30
pain that they're causing an individual and we talked about how in some cases the the offender will even revive
00:39:40
even perform cpr so on some victims to revive them so that they can punish them and torture them more
00:39:48
because a unconscious or dead victim does not give them the gratification that they are seeking right and i've
00:39:55
heard some sick stuff before but flicky flicky because you like breaking bones that's very very strange
00:40:05
yeah at one point during this situation thad says that joe masturbated in front of him so that should if
00:40:14
anybody's out there questioning this sexual sadist that i think would offer you all the proof that you need
00:40:22
yeah the other weird thing too is that when they searched the home in joseph's room they found a notebook
00:40:32
that is described at this trial as a hit list and it had 29 names 29 people were listed in this hit list
00:40:42
and they fell into two different categories one was get to now and the other category was can wait
00:40:54
now thad phillips name was not in either category uh because joseph clark didn't
00:40:59
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
00:41:08
to sneak into that house and take that kid tonight while my parents are gone because again as we pointed out during
00:41:15
the trailer the torture is the reason for any of the other crimes at all and so this a torture takes
00:41:23
has to take place in in a in a location where you have privacy to do these types of things and
00:41:30
where you can control the situation but i think his joe clark's thought was when
00:41:35
he saw his feet well was boner city well on that hit list uh next to some of the names said
00:41:44
the leg thing like this was a thing that he enjoys and a thing that he intended to
00:41:51
do to some of these people that fell into one of two categories get to now which i'm assuming means
00:41:59
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
00:42:05
little more reconnaissance on because we know that if he was involved in chris steiner's
00:42:12
abduction and murder that he probably had some general information about oh well the brother is sleeping at
00:42:20
somebody else's house knows how to get to chris steiner's room i wonder if chris steiner had missing
00:42:26
socks as well from that house because what we do see is that chris steiner's name did
00:42:33
fall into one of those two categories on that quote-unquote hit list that was found in the notebook in joseph clark's
00:42:40
room yeah the other thing that we learn this is at the second trial okay this is the second trial where it's
00:42:48
the first degree murder charges for the death of chris steiner we learn that steiner's parents
00:42:56
told what was left out from the media version of the day before events of when chris went missing right was
00:43:05
that he hung out with a local boy the day before and who was it oh it was joseph clark
00:43:12
the two knew each other they were friends so very likely if those muddy footprints
00:43:19
did exist it was joseph clark going into their home in the middle of night and he may
00:43:23
not have had to carry the 14 year old out of there that night he may have been able to wake
00:43:29
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
00:43:33
bit but a fetish like this i mean there has to be some serious trauma and i i really like to see those
00:43:44
psychology reports on on joseph clark could be i i don't know um we often look at these situations and ask ourselves
00:43:52
why were there any red flags how can we identify this before it happens to somebody else
00:43:58
and it's really the answer is all over the shop you do see severe abuse in some of these people
00:44:05
that grow up to do these type of things and other times you see people with perfect childhoods right um you know
00:44:12
it's very difficult to explain why one person is sexually attracted to or or sexually excited by something
00:44:23
and another person is not and another person might be sexually excited by something completely
00:44:28
different it's very it's very difficult to understand why that is again we're all very unique
00:44:36
individuals with with different tastes different likes and and what have you now
00:44:42
as far as the trial goes the the first trial was done with and went down in september of
00:44:48
1996 this trial is the most important because this trial is basically going to set up
00:44:58
what they need for the second trial where they charge him with first degree so at this trial they have the famous
00:45:05
park deets plus another psychologist who testify and both of them testified that joseph clark was sane during the
00:45:14
time of the attack on thad phillips and park dietz is the one that actively names him as a sexual sadist
00:45:22
during the trial right i think the judge might have thrown that portion out regardless park dietz said that while on
00:45:30
the stand so joseph clark was found to be seen at trial by unanimous decision in a
00:45:36
deliberation that took only one hour and he would be sentenced weeks later so he
00:45:41
ends up being convicted on all of the charges that we mentioned in thad's case and sentenced to 110 years in prison
00:45:49
of course now we're going to go to columbia county where joseph clark is facing first degree murder
00:45:56
charges for the abduction and murder of 14 year old chris steiner at this trial it's mostly circumstantial
00:46:03
evidence that is being presented there was some interesting things that came out
00:46:07
uh again most interesting to me the most interesting statement was that from the
00:46:12
parents saying steiner hung out with clark the day before he was found guilty and sentenced to
00:46:18
life for the murder of chris steiner he was also successfully sued by thad phillips
00:46:27
parents forcing him to pay 21 million in damages obviously he's a a prisoner of the state
00:46:33
he will never earn 21 million dollars to be able to pay that back but um 21 million dollars in damages gives you
00:46:42
some idea of the medical cost involved in the surgeries and rehabilitation and hospitalization of
00:46:50
thaad phillips there was a 1998 appeal filed by joseph clark against his convictions
00:47:00
which was rejected by the district court some other weird things in this case here captain thad phillips was actually
00:47:07
shot at some point by this was after after joseph clark was sentenced i'm sorry after he was found to be
00:47:17
guilty uh in october of 1996 on october 8th thad phillips was shot by michael hubes
00:47:26
i think is how you say his name hibbs i'll try that that's i looked it up and that's how
00:47:35
they told me to say that last name it's a difficult last name obviously for me maybe not for others but
00:47:42
this michael kidd shot thad phillips on the 8th and i don't know the outcome of that situation i know that they
00:47:54
wanted to charge this michael kidd with attempted murder but the defense was that
00:48:00
thad phillips and some other kid went into michael's home to beat him up and that this was
00:48:10
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
00:48:19
went off the result was four wounds to the back shoulder front shoulder neck and cheek
00:48:25
of thad phillips but in all fairness we need to point out that a judge granted a restraining order
00:48:32
to keep thad phillips and that friend away from this michael kid and his little brother so there may be some
00:48:40
weight to that the self-defense claims in that case if people have heard of this case before
00:48:48
they've probably heard it from the i survived show that's uh is that on discovery id i
00:48:55
believe i believe the id channel i believe it's on a e and it's there that if you view that
00:49:03
episode you can see and hear thad talking about the abduction and the torture that followed and one of the
00:49:12
most horrifying lines that thad says on there is that joseph clark grabbed his right ankle
00:49:22
with both of his hands and twisted his foot he felt it break like a quick snapping
00:49:28
sound and when he looked down he could see that the skin around his ankles looked like a twisted up rubber
00:49:36
band [Music] thank you guys so much for joining us here in the garage if you need more true
00:49:51
crime garage and you do need more i know you need more go check out off the record on stitcher
00:49:58
premium you're going to love it colonel do we have any recommended reading for this week
00:50:04
this week we are recommending one i'm sure many of our listeners have heard of and probably have already read but it's
00:50:11
a really good one and long overdue so we are recommending the devil in the white
00:50:16
city by eric lawson this is a new york times bestseller about the city of chicago the 1893 world's fair and dr
00:50:26
henry h holmes better known as serial killer hh homes check out this great title and many more recommendations on
00:50:34
our recommended page at truecrimegarage.com and until next week be good be kind and
00:50:39
don't listen [Music] you