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podcast free all lowercase shopify.com podcast free shopify.com podcast [Music] [Music]
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free [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who is very tightly holding on to some tasty little nuggets
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of alien technology here is the captain yeah if you squeeze me too hard I might fart it's good to be seen and good to
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see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music] friend this week we are very excited to
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be featuring gray Monday 2021 this is a decadent that's right decadent Bourbon Barrel age Imperial
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Stout with hazelnuts by the brewery garage grade four and a quar bottle caps out of five ABV 19% so again drink this
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week first up we have a cheers to Kim and Spencer Ohio and a big shout out to Gloria and Orlando Florida and here's
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everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime
00:03:59
[Music] over the years during these trailers we have provided differing definitions and
00:04:07
opinions about sexual sadus or the great white sharks as Roy Hazelwood calls them
00:04:14
in his books the evil that men do and dark dreams and on several occasions we presented case studies from John Douglas
00:04:22
an and Alan burges and Robert wrestler's crime classification manual today we present another case study from the
00:04:31
manual case study number 134 sadistic murder as it pertains to this week's killer who is a real life
00:04:41
monster with a unique fetish a sexual SST is someone who has established an enduring pattern of
00:04:48
sexual arousal in response to sadistic imagery sexual gratification is obtained from torture involving excessive mental
00:04:58
and physical means the offender derives the greatest satisfaction from the victim's response
00:05:05
to torture sexually sadistic fantasies in which sexual acts are paired with domination degradation and violence are
00:05:15
translated into criminal action that results in death sadistic murder victimology has some similarities to the
00:05:23
victimology of organized sexual homicides the victims are chosen through systematic stalk
00:05:30
and surveillance they are approached under the pretext such as the offenders requesting or offering assistance asking
00:05:40
directions or impersonating a police officer a ruse may be employed such as posing as a talent scout looking for
00:05:49
prospective models or actresses and promising them jobs there are often multiple crime scenes involved with this
00:05:56
type of sexual homicide the place of the initial encounter the torture SL death scene Andor the body disposal site the
00:06:06
very nature of this crime sadism expressed through torture necessitates a secluded or solitary place for the
00:06:16
prolonged period of time the offender spends with a victim this captivity may be from a few hours to As Long As
00:06:23
several weeks the offender's residence may be used if it can provide the required
00:06:30
seclusion the body is routinely concealed especially with the more organized offender it is possible that
00:06:38
there are implications of Overkill and or deep personalization for pratic reasons often to obscure the victim's
00:06:48
identity the offender May tamper with the crime scene by staging secondary criminal activity most often rape or
00:06:56
robbery to Veil the primary motive of sadistic murder The Act of Killing is often
00:07:04
eroticized death comes in a slow deliberate manner that is savored by the offender but because an unconscious or
00:07:13
dead victim does not afford the offender the gratification he seeks great care is taken not to end the
00:07:21
victim's life prematurely in several cases offenders not only took special measures to keep
00:07:27
their victims conscious but actually revived near dead victims in order to cause additional suffering one of the
00:07:35
many search warrant suggestions for this case type of offender is to look for items dealing with the offenses these
00:07:43
would be written records manuscripts Diaries threatening letters calendars sketches drawings audio tapes videotapes
00:07:54
and photographs the Green River Killer Gary Ridgeway was highly focused on the necks of his many victims for the Malala
00:08:02
Forest killer Dayton Leroy Rogers his thing was the feet of his victims and in this week's case study the serial Fender
00:08:10
was fascinated by the breaking of Bones this is true crime garage and this is the case the Bone Breaker
00:08:19
[Music] killer [Music] this week we go to barou Wisconson barou is a city of about 12,000 people and is
00:08:41
part of sck County sock County is located in an absolutely beautiful part of the state of Wisconsin which is not
00:08:49
only a beautiful state but a proud beer drinking State as well by the way our story really starts off on the 4th of
00:08:58
July one of my my favorite days of the year this is Independence Day 1994 this is a Monday but it's a holiday
00:09:07
so normally most people might sleep in on this day but 14-year-old Christian Steiner started working at his first job
00:09:15
just weeks ago Chris was working at the McDonald's a few miles from his family's
00:09:20
home and on this holiday Monday Chris was scheduled to work at the McDonald's so his parents George and Kathy went to
00:09:28
wake Chris up at 6:15 a.m. that morning but Chris was not there he was nowhere to be found they look around the home
00:09:38
he's not already up and starting his day he's nowhere to be found so George and Kathy called the police reporting that
00:09:46
something strange was going on and they didn't know where their son was so this is what the police and Chris's parents
00:09:54
George and Kathy were able to determine they found two doors unlocked locked these are two doors on the ground level
00:10:01
of the home and next they found a window screen with a slit in it now on July 3rd
00:10:08
it was a very comfortable night as far as temperature goes and the family left many of the windows open that night at
00:10:16
the house the screen with the slit was for a window to Chris's older brother's room this bedroom was located on the
00:10:24
ground level and the Slit was described as large enough that someone could climb
00:10:31
through it now Chris's brother was not there that night in fact he was staying over at a friend's house so the police
00:10:40
and the concerned parents had a couple of theories the theory they all liked the
00:10:46
best was that Chris along with the help of a friend or some friends snuck out of
00:10:52
the house and at some point he would probably be back soon or maybe he might even wait a while to to come home
00:10:59
knowing that he's going to be in trouble for sneaking out of the house yeah or he
00:11:04
might just find his own way to get to work the other possibility that they thought is that maybe he ran away from
00:11:11
home this would be a possibility of course we are talking about a 14-year-old boy but his parents said
00:11:19
look we don't have any problems with Chris we don't argue with him he doesn't argue with us everyone in the family
00:11:25
gets along very well and they said although Chris did did not get very good grades in school he had recently started
00:11:32
this job and was really liking his job you know there are some kids that are able to shine in the classroom and then
00:11:42
there are some that are just great little worker bees and shine more in a workplace type setting well that was
00:11:48
Chris's thing here's what they told the police because keep in mind when they went to bed the day before on July 3rd
00:11:58
everything was fine the Steiners knew where all of their kids were so they told police all about
00:12:06
what went down on July 3rd and they said that on July 3rd at about 300 p.m. both
00:12:12
parents picked up Chris from the McDonald's where Chris worked Chris helped his mom get ready for dinner then
00:12:21
Chris played with his little brother for a while in the backyard George said that
00:12:26
at 10 p.m. he went upstairs to check on Chris and found him asleep still in his clothes but asleep in his clothes on his
00:12:33
bed so George says he shut the light off in Chris's room and that was the last time either parents saw Chris by the
00:12:42
next morning at 6:15 a.m. he is gone I would be guessing here a couple things you're going to have some indicators to
00:12:50
tell you that he probably did not go to work on his own one you don't have a note from him it was agreed upon when
00:12:56
they went to sleep the night before that the parent parents would be driving him
00:13:00
early in the morning mhm and you're probably going to find his work uniform in the closet or still you know in his
00:13:09
room somewhere so this is a really interesting case to look at as this is not the typical situation that we have
00:13:16
encountered before here in the garage in most cases there is a major concern and
00:13:20
panic mhm normally we have terrified parents but in those cases we are talking about a parent waking up to a
00:13:28
cut screen and a toddler missing from the home here it could just be what it seems that he snuck out in the middle of
00:13:35
the night met up with some friends and they got into a little teenage boy mischief and he would be back and well
00:13:43
unfortunately that does not end up being the case right but a couple other things
00:13:47
too I mean he's 14 so it's possible is there some girl that he was talking to that they didn't know of that he wanted
00:13:54
to meet up with or he has this new job he's working with people probably older than him did he meet up with one of them
00:14:04
right and I think that word friends encompasses all of those possibilities because you're right Captain he is 14
00:14:11
he's at that age where you don't always tell Mom and Dad everything that you're doing when it's not on the up and
00:14:17
up and there were some other indicators and I'm a little reluctant to throw these out there because I could only
00:14:25
find one source that stated this that they had found some muddy shoe prints inside the
00:14:32
home and my guess here and this is why I'm a little hesitant to go down this road but my guess here is that those
00:14:40
muddy shoe prints would have indicated to the parents and to the police that somebody entered the home and then
00:14:49
possibly left with Chris out one of the doors meaning I'm guessing because of this slit in the the window screen mhm
00:14:59
that possibly there was Footprints from that cut Screen through the home because we have
00:15:07
a statement later from George from from Chris's father that says you know I think that he someone may have come to
00:15:16
the house and left with Chris one of his friends may have come to the house and left with Chris because he throws out
00:15:23
there in that same in that same statement that it would have been somebody that knew the layout of our
00:15:29
home mhm so what I'm guessing if these Footprints exist um is that it showed not somebody
00:15:38
walking around the house trying to look for something you know this is a fairly large home there's multiple people that
00:15:45
are living and staying there that the footprints if they did exist were an indicator to Chris's parents and to
00:15:52
police that whoever entered the home knew where they were going meaning one they went through Chris's brother's room
00:16:00
because they may have known that the brother was gone for the night and it might be one of the only ground level
00:16:08
bedrooms of the home and then made their way to Chris's room and then left through one of the
00:16:16
doors on the ground level leaving it unlocked behind them well and again this is different than like a child abduction
00:16:22
because the perpetrator could come in the house and carry the victim out this is a 14-year-old
00:16:29
young man basically so it's you I'm guessing he'd be pretty difficult to carry out on your own yeah and what I
00:16:36
was pointing out earlier too Captain is that again this is a situation where I could tell from the the parents
00:16:42
statements and from the police statements at the time well I should say the sheriff it was Sheriff's Department
00:16:48
that get it right nobody was really panicked it just seemed like this was you know Boyhood childish uh Mischief
00:16:56
going on and the initial belief was that at some point on this day on this Monday
00:17:03
on this holiday Monday he'll come back home and oh he's going to be in trouble when he gets back here yeah now the
00:17:09
Steiners say that they spent that first night waiting up until dawn sitting on their front porch expecting that at any
00:17:18
point he would come home they said that they would stare down every car that pulled onto their street thinking okay
00:17:26
here he is someone's dropping him off but as the sun came up Tuesday July 5th Chris never came home well yeah again
00:17:37
like you said before then at some point midday you're going kid's not even in trouble any more in my mind I just want
00:17:47
him home yeah you know and now it's getting dark something's wrong that would be the
00:17:54
moment once it start getting dark where I'd go something's wrong man my boy should be home by now unfortunately most
00:18:01
parents out there have had a similar situation where they go from being angry or upset at their child yeah to feeling
00:18:11
stressed and panicked and just worried out of their mind worried sick as my mom used to say and so this is that
00:18:20
situation and most of the time for parents the situation ends up being it's it's no real big deal mhm just a
00:18:28
misunderstanding but here as you're pointing out captain now it's the next day and your son still has not come home
00:18:37
and the Steiners went on to say that they spent the next few days passing out flyers looking for their son and George
00:18:44
took to sleeping on the couch with the front door unlocked every night because he knew that Chris did not have his own
00:18:52
set of keys to the house yeah so that at any time at any hour of the day if Chris
00:18:59
returned he would be able to walk inside the home yeah it becomes a very kind of
00:19:04
sad desperate scene that's right and Captain we do get some information that may give some more weight to The Runaway
00:19:14
Theory and this is per the sheriff this is the uh sock County sheriff and he has
00:19:19
a cool sounding old school country Sheriff name this is Sheriff Butch steinhurst MH he says there were two
00:19:29
unconfirmed let's be very clear about that two unconfirmed let's underline that word unconfirmed reports where
00:19:36
someone says they saw Chris Steiner near the Quick Trip convenience store this would be on July 4th so the first day
00:19:45
that he was missing and then there's another unconfirmed report of a sighting of Chris at the local Kmart this is the
00:19:53
next day on July 5th well again he's working with individuals that are probably a little bit older than him
00:19:59
some of them probably live on their own so it starts making you wonder did he go
00:20:06
look I'm not that great at school but I like this job maybe I've worked maybe I got a couple paychecks and I got a
00:20:13
little bit of money now hey I'm I'm going to go move in with Steve that runs the frier but you think law enforcement
00:20:20
would be in contact with obviously that McDonald's and any employee that works there well and we're talking about a
00:20:27
town of 12,000 people right so it should be fairly easy to ask the appropriate people and talk to anybody that would
00:20:36
have known Chris and question where he may have been and usually when those situations are going on you do have
00:20:43
people that know where the child is know where the teenager is but I'm saying when you have a couple people going hey
00:20:49
I think I saw them then you start going well is he staying with somebody and they're not coming forward right and
00:20:57
that's where you go okay maybe the sheriff's department had it right in the beginning and this is a runaway
00:21:03
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all lowercase shopify.com podcast free shopify.com SLP podcast free all right we're back from the beer
00:22:54
break cheers mates to everybody in the back cheers to the crispiest of the colonel list of the
00:23:03
colonel list cheers to you Captain so if I'm the sheriff right MH I'm all I'm Mr
00:23:10
Butch right I'm looking at this first my first guess you snuck out with your friends to drink some beer smoke some
00:23:21
pot right or maybe prank some houses that's what I'm thinking initially meet up with girls meet up
00:23:31
with a girl go hang out with some older dudes that you met at work it's any number of things yeah you're right and
00:23:37
maybe the older guys are going they're they're going through a hazing process who
00:23:42
knows when that doesn't come through I I start going okay he's a runaway now we have these two possible sightings but
00:23:53
they're not confirmed so I'm not leaning on that theory but that that's probably where
00:23:58
I'm leaning towards but as more time goes by and then with these Footprints too so you go
00:24:06
everybody's home they have a younger child younger child's still there the 14-year-old is
00:24:13
the one that goes missing mhm and then you have this the other son just happens to not be there that night you have this
00:24:22
rip in the screen as the sheriff I'm starting to wonder did something happen and did the parents start like set up
00:24:32
this scene you see what I'm saying mhm and so I wonder if that's something they looked
00:24:39
into as this kid's missing from what I could find here Captain Sheriff Butch steinhurst and his uh the people working
00:24:48
under his command and his rule seem to be fairly thorough and so I'm sure that's probably something they looked at
00:24:56
but here and as is the case in most situations I'm guessing there's probably some
00:25:03
details uh about that night that we are not privy to right so um because there never seems to be that voice or that
00:25:12
concern ever presented in any portion of the early stages of that case well we're not also
00:25:20
privy to their actions their demeanor their tone and voice in which they're presenting any this information to the
00:25:29
sheriff mhm that's correct and well basically what's going to happen here is that it's going to be hell week for the
00:25:39
Steiners they last see Chris Sunday July 3r at 10 p.m. and then they go through hell all week long and on the next
00:25:50
Sunday July 10th detectives showed up once again to the Steiner home knocked on the door door and well they didn't
00:26:00
necessarily have the worst news for the Steiners but it certainly was not good news detectives wanted to know if they
00:26:08
could get Chris's dental records because a body had been found in the Wisconson River in or near depending on the source
00:26:18
the Pine Island Wildlife Refuge the Steiners provided the dental records for the detectives and the Steiners were no
00:26:25
dummies they knew that if sock County detectives were at their door that these detectives would not have been on their
00:26:33
doorstep if they did not think that the body was that of their son the next day the Steiners were notified that the body
00:26:42
found in the Wisconsin River was their 14-year-old son so now they knew that they had lost Chris forever wow so the
00:26:50
body is recovered from the river but in the neighboring County so now you have counties you have two count counties
00:26:58
sock and columia investigating plus you have the Columbia County coroner and the
00:27:05
Wisconsin State Pathologists all working the case according to the County coroner
00:27:11
this is Keith EPS because of course he was asked to speculate when the body when it was recovered he was asked
00:27:21
to speculate about the body and what they could infer from what they were seeing at the scene and EPs and the
00:27:30
sheriff both described the body as bloated and EPS adding that his guess would be that the body was in the river
00:27:39
for at least 3 days because he says it usually takes about 3 days for the body to surface the local news media
00:27:48
questioned this I'm guessing because either they received some bad information on this case or possibly due
00:27:54
to a local rumor but they POS the question of well we heard or we were told that law enforcement believes that
00:28:04
Chris was in the water for just two days and both the sheriff and the corer were
00:28:09
very very clear saying we don't know how long he was in the water but it was longer than two days again the corner
00:28:17
saying it usually takes about 3 Days To surface and the sheriff adding they usually don't get that bad
00:28:24
in two days that's his vague description of the remains and from everything they
00:28:32
were saying Captain it sounds like they couldn't really prove it but they were working on the idea based on evidence
00:28:40
and what their experience is telling them that Chris probably died closer to the time when he went missing and likely
00:28:48
ended up in the water closer to the night when he went missing yeah so remember it was just a few hours over a
00:28:57
week that he was gone so law enforcement putting the time of death much closer to
00:29:04
that Sunday morning when Chris's parents noticed that he was not home the cause of death was ruled to be drowning but
00:29:10
the manner of death was left as undetermined the sheriff said that they were actively looking for the entry
00:29:18
point into the river this might help to better determine the manner of death do we have puncture wounds they're not very
00:29:26
descriptive about what they're going to release to the public right at this time
00:29:31
and maybe they're holding that back CU they know that some that's something that a suspect would know or the killer
00:29:37
would know well I think you're going to get a better idea of what their suspicions were uh when I give you this
00:29:45
information the sheriff said that he was hopeful that they would be able to locate a party spot with obvious signs
00:29:52
and evidence of a recent teenager party along the water after days of trying we were told no
00:30:01
such party spot was located it sounds like the sheriff's department was now fully on board with the idea that
00:30:08
Chris's parents had in the beginning right from Jump Street that Chris was not only you know not
00:30:15
only did he leave their home in the middle of the night probably with somebody else he wasn't alone then but
00:30:24
he probably wasn't alone whenever he went into the Waters of the Wisconsin now George and Kathy Steiner were left
00:30:31
with only photographs and memories of their son Chris they remember him as a happy loud and boisterous boy who was a
00:30:40
delight to be around remembering that Chris did exactly what the dentist told him for a full seven years so that he
00:30:48
could get out of those braces on schedule he had a new job that he liked and was already calculating the extra
00:30:55
money he could make worth working on Sundays and holidays he loved fishing the outdoors and playing baseball George
00:31:03
and Cathy set up a reward fund this is very interesting here Captain because what we are faced with again is even
00:31:11
though you have the ruling of drowning as the cause of death you don't have the manner of death was it an accident did
00:31:18
somebody put him in the water did uh you know any number of things could have happened here and again you're not
00:31:25
saying that there's a toxicology report so we don't know if he went out with somebody's drinking and got drunk and
00:31:32
end up drowning in this in this body of water yes you're exactly right and one thing they did State early on is that
00:31:39
they were going to run toxicology but it would be several weeks before they would
00:31:44
get the results for that we have to keep in mind this is 1994 so Chris's parents George and Kathy
00:31:52
they set up this reward fund offering a cash reward to anyone who came forward with information that would provide
00:31:59
answers to Chris's mysterious death because that's what you have here you have a mysterious
00:32:05
death a suspicious death right and one thing that I noticed kind of reading between the lines here seems like the
00:32:13
sheriff's department kind of felt that way that we have a quote unquote suspicious death even though they never
00:32:19
said those words well like I said at this point even if the parents are being cooperative the way you find him you
00:32:26
start going wait well they're also the last people that saw him so they they become Under the Umbrella of
00:32:35
Suspicion right and that's exactly it it's he didn't get to the river on his own yeah um well in technically what his
00:32:43
dad's saying is like yeah I roughly saw him rough roughly saw him stop me if I'm
00:32:48
wrong roughly around the 1000 p.m. area MH and then he was supposed to wake him up in the
00:32:55
6:00 period and he wasn't there so that's a large gap that's you have about 8 hours yeah that's a large gap of and
00:33:04
so it's like well where are you guys' whereabouts and then that makes it more difficult too cuz one it's his parents
00:33:10
so you don't want to you know piss them off by asking too many questions cuz you
00:33:16
see they're grieving do they know more that they're just not telling you well and I think this will show there's kind
00:33:23
of a united front here with the sheriff's department and that was my nickname in college the Steiners because
00:33:30
remember the Steiners set up this reward fund offering a cash reward to anyone who would have information that could
00:33:36
provide answers about Chris's death a phone number was listed in multiple newspapers so that people could call
00:33:45
should they have any information now George Chris's father told the Wisconsin State Journal what hurts so much is that
00:33:53
you know that other kids were out there with him something happened out there something terrible happened out there
00:34:00
but what we can't understand is how someone could have left him there without calling and Sheriff Butch
00:34:06
steinhurst said that no charges of withholding information or underage drinking would be brought against anyone
00:34:15
who provides information regarding Chris's death yeah that's a smart move because and they should do that more
00:34:23
often because I think there's a lot of times where there's accidental deaths that that people go to
00:34:30
the extreme to cover up well there was a newspaper article that I think sums up what their concerns were regarding the
00:34:37
mystery about Chris Steiner's death the article is titled clu saw and death of Youth and it goes on to say exactly how
00:34:47
a barou youth succumbed to the dark and murky Waters of the Wisconsin River May remain a mystery unless authorities are
00:34:56
aided by by Witnesses and that's kind of how they left it captain and how it would remain
00:35:02
for quite some time this brings us to Sunday July 30th 1995 in our timeline this is almost exactly one year really
00:35:11
just a couple weeks over the one-year Mark in fact when Chris Steiner went missing and then later was found dead in
00:35:20
the river and now we're going to introduce another family this is the Phillips family here captain at 4:00 a.m. Donald
00:35:28
Phillips woke up and noticed something strange his son and daughter fell asleep on couches in the living room the night
00:35:36
before now at 4:00 a.m. his daughter is still asleep on the couch but his 13-year-old son Thaddius is nowhere to
00:35:46
be found Donald checked the boy's room and again his son was not there and strangely the boy's shoes were right
00:35:55
where he had left them the night before so no boy but his shoes are right here and yet there was not any sign of any
00:36:03
type of struggle inside of this home and there was no note or anything left behind from his son so Donald and his
00:36:13
wife called it into police telling police what they knew about the night before and finding their daughter still
00:36:20
asleep but not Thad and adding that Thad had never taken off before and both were
00:36:26
certain that if the boy had left on his own that he would have left some kind of
00:36:31
note for his parents to find what is odd here as well Captain is the Phillips Family Thad his parents and sister were
00:36:41
new to this specific area they moved into this neighborhood just about 2 weeks before they lived about 11 mil
00:36:49
away a 17-minute drive from their previous residence so they checked anywhere they could think of that Thad
00:36:57
may have taken off to this would be places like the fairgrounds and the community pool but no Thad and the
00:37:05
people they talked to and the people that they asked had not seen the boy either and offered no information as to
00:37:11
where they might find their son so either the boy took off under the cloak of Darkness or someone had stolen the
00:37:19
boy in the night but like you said they're also new to the area so you do have that sometimes you hear about
00:37:26
people where they move into a new area it's not going well for the kid so the kid decides to try to take back off to
00:37:33
where they came from yeah truly a difficult situation here because he's at an age where it would be difficult for
00:37:40
him to cover any great kind of distance on his own um you know he doesn't have a
00:37:46
vehicle and it would be obvious if his bike were missing and I think again the alarming situation here Captain is we
00:37:54
say either he took off off under the cloak of Darkness or someone came into the home and stole the boy in the night
00:38:02
but again 13-year-old that's it's hard to carry a 13-year-old but when you see the boy's
00:38:08
shoes where they were the night before when he had fallen asleep on the couch I think as a parent for me that would be
00:38:17
my major concern I'm going wait my son's not here yet his shoes are right here did he I get it if he snuck out of the
00:38:26
house house but I think he's probably putting his shoes on before he goes out that's telling me something else has
00:38:34
happened in this situation yeah yeah I I agree that's definitely a sign that if you're going to run away
00:38:42
you you're not going to do it Barefoot exactly that would be my thought here and what you're pointing out Captain is
00:38:49
a very common thing people move away kid gets weird about the move maybe doesn't
00:38:54
know anybody in the neighborhood it makes an impulsive decision to take off but those shoes being there would scare
00:39:00
me quite a bit this is going to lead us to Sunday July 31st 1995 just before 8:00 p.m. this is when a 911 call came
00:39:12
in on the line was a boy who said he was taken from his home in the middle of the
00:39:18
night and was being tortured and held captive the boy said he did not know his attacker or the location where he was
00:39:27
being held the call was traced and once the location of the call was determined police and Emergency Services were on
00:39:36
the scene less than 30 minutes from the start of the 911 call when they arrived on the scene they found the caller a boy
00:39:46
in bad shape the call came from 13-year-old Thaddius Phillips the boy who vanished
00:39:54
less than 48 hours earlier he told them that an older boy had kidnapped him and held him there they
00:40:02
rushed Thad off to the local hospital and they went looking for the perpetrator police were looking for
00:40:09
17-year-old Joseph Clark who was said to be according to the police call Joe was
00:40:16
driving an old painted over vehicle and may be in the company of a quote big girl or woman the location where Thad
00:40:27
was being held was less than half a mile from his home police didn't have much luck searching for the 17-year-old
00:40:36
suspect Joseph Clark so they set up a stake out so to speak leaving officers in unmarked cars watching the house and
00:40:46
waiting for Joe to return and he did just before midnight and when he returned to the home he was placed in
00:40:53
cuffs and arrested well wouldn't that calls 911 and when he states that it was an older boy that kidnapped him I mean
00:41:01
this is a very abnormal situation I would think if I was a police officer yeah I'm thinking a teenager is going to
00:41:09
come around the corner but I wouldn't have been surprised if it was a 25y old man or a 30-year-old man that told this
00:41:18
you know teenager hey uh yeah I'm I'm just a couple years older than you are it's just such a abnormal strange
00:41:26
situation to have basically a kid abduct a kid yeah and I don't know it's unclear
00:41:33
how much Thad knew about his abductor we know that he spent um about approximately 43 hours being held
00:41:41
captive by this older boy yeah but again he doesn't know Joe Clark even though they're both technically children he
00:41:51
doesn't know anybody in that area he does know some of the people in in the area I mean he he lived about 10 11
00:41:58
miles from this location but you're right it this most of the people here are going to be completely new to him
00:42:05
and his family yeah it's a new town he's only been there for a little bit it's very strange he would know a few year
00:42:12
older Joe Clark yeah and he doesn't and in fact that is why he's not able to tell 911 where he's being held he
00:42:22
doesn't have anything to offer up as to hey uh here's a clue as to where I'm located
00:42:29
so you can come and rescue me they have to trace the call and keep him on the line so our victim here Captain Thad
00:42:38
Phillips 13-year-old Thad Phillips as we said was sent immediately to the hospital this is because again when he's
00:42:45
found at this location he's in very bad shape it's obvious right from when they see him he needs to go immediately to
00:42:55
the hospital this is where he's going to have to undergo several surgeries to try
00:42:59
to repair his legs in fact in the first two surgeries they put pins in one leg and a rod in the other the injuries were
00:43:10
listed a couple of different ways depending on which source you have but what seems to be the general consensus
00:43:18
is that thad's legs were broken four times both ankles were broke one of his knees and a femur bone
00:43:26
all broken that's crazy and let's not forget the femur this is your thigh bone which is the longest and strongest bone
00:43:35
in the human body Thad not only told police about what happened to him but he told his father Dawn at the hospital as
00:43:43
far as what was being released to the public early on well they were mostly small details coming from thad's father
00:43:51
Dawn as he answered reporter's questions while pretty much living at the hospital
00:43:57
for days while doctors and nurses worked to repair his boy Don told reporters that neither he nor Thad knew the boy
00:44:06
Joe Clark who abducted Thad prior to this incident so there you go that rules out any type of personal motive Don said
00:44:15
thad's captor brutalized and tortured the boy in the form of beatings that involved Joe choking punching that as
00:44:23
well as twisting The Boy's ankles and legs and jumping up and down on thad's legs according to Dawn Joe told Thad
00:44:33
that he had kidnapped the boy because he liked busting people's bones and that he
00:44:38
had done this type of thing before to other victims Don said that the girl or the woman companion of Joe's according
00:44:46
to Thad never saw the boy and that she was not in any way a part of the kidnapping or the torture that followed
00:44:56
she never saw the boy she you'd think that she at least heard the boy these are thad's words that he saw
00:45:04
the girl but she never saw him and look my belief is that he probably saw her through a window and saw her
00:45:15
outside again according to Thad and to Dawn the girl had nothing to do with the abduction or any of the torture that
00:45:22
followed well on a quick Google search I I put in how many pounds of pressure to
00:45:27
break your ankle one of the suggestions is there's a link to the best ways to break your own leg it says a rough
00:45:38
estimate it would take about 218 lounds of pressure to produce a tibial fracture
00:45:46
and a healthy adult using a hammer so I'm guessing less for a teenager you could decrease the force requirement by
00:45:55
choosing a tool pool with less surface area such as a hatchet then again you'd be increasing the risk of soft soft
00:46:03
tissue damage and significant blood loss so here we have the abduction and torture of a 13-year-old Thad Phillips
00:46:14
and now we have 17-year-old Joseph Clark who lives just half a mile away in custody and we have
00:46:23
the parents of Chris Steiner who are sitting there wondering look our boy disappeared vanished in the middle of
00:46:30
the night from our home much like that of this young Thad Phillips kid and we are still here over a year later
00:46:38
wondering how our son [Music] died so much more to get to while you're waiting go to truecar.com and sign up on
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our mailing list what do you get hey you get promo codes to the store Page and what you don't have to do nothing we you
00:47:06
just sign up for the email list and we shoot you a promo code every few weeks and uh you get to save a little cheddar
00:47:14
so join us back here for episode number two and until then be good be kind and don't
00:47:22
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