and Jean Jacksonville 911 yes sir hi this is um i' uh went out to play this this afternoon I thought she was with and now she's missing how old is she she's 8 years old where was she playing at around the house right around the house here is she a white female or black female she's a white female what did she have on when she left she had on a red t-shirt and Mama did she have on beans no I I've been upstairs mama I have searched ma'am yes blue jeans Mama did you have on Blue Jeans no what' you have on what's kind of shorts pair of shorts she had on a pair of shorts and a red t-shirt is she blonde hair black hair no she's got a reddish brown hair it's actually a brown with an Auburn tint to it short her name is m she goes it's mine what's her last name Clon c i f is in Frank T O N when's the last time anybody saw her mama what time did I come home from voting about 5:30 4:30 to 5:00 about 5:30 was the last time we saw her and I was letting the kids play out here for a little while and then she just she disappeared and nobody knows where she's at she any friends nearby did you go check I've got every neighbor out here right now okay the police will be there shortly man' you keep looking okay okay do you do you know where I am I mean the corner of Fleetwood and St is right there what is it my husband just came home and hold on just a moment honey Maddie is gone no okay my husband just pulled up but she's not with him of course okay the police are going to be there shortly ma'am okay thank you byebye the Frantic 911 call you just heard was made by MADD Clifton's mother Sheila moments after she realized that her young daughter was missing as the police arrived in the neighborhood gathered to search for her no one could have possibly imagined the heartbreaking and horrifying end to this case the following footage contains neverbe seen crime seen photos the last person to see 8-year-old Maddie Clifton on November 3rd 1998 in Jacksonville Florida was her friend and neighbor Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips because 14-year-old Josh's house was right across the street the two had become fast friends and often hung out together on that day mdy had gone over to Josh's house to play baseball outside in his backyard later mattye headed home but she never arrived around 5:00 p.m. her mother made the disturbing 911 call you heard when she real realized that no one could find Maddie she was last seen wearing a red YMCA basketball shirt with her name across the back in big letters immediately hundreds of people got together and searched for her looking in the woods around her home and even in dumpsters early in the search Josh asked mty's mother what was going on and once he learned that no one could find Maddie he eagerly joined the community to help search for his friend Josh was distraught when he heard that Maddie had gone missing and did everything he could to help find her putting up fires with Mattie's information and helping to Canvas the area where she vanished Mattie's face often a picture of her with a Kool-Aid stained smile was plastered onto Billboards and t-shirts and a $50,000 reward was offered in the hopes that someone anyone would recognize her and tell her anguished family what had happened to the bright and happy little girl for almost a week the community rallied together to search for missing Maddie the first suspect was one of Mattie's neighbors a man who had been accused of involving m in an assault case over 15 or 20 years earlier however the man had an alibi for when Maddie disappeared and he was cleared of any suspicion soon the FBI was involved when the local police struggled to find any more leads but they too didn't find any new evidence it was starting to look like Maddie had disappeared off the face of the Earth but everything changed 6 days after Maddie disappeared when the most unsuspecting person was revealed to have the darkest secret Missy Phillips Josh's mother noticed a strange wet spot on the floor of their house from there she started searching her son's room until her attention was brought to Josh's bed she later said I didn't want to believe what I was seeing then in shock she left her house looking around for a police officer for a moment she glanced over at the neighboring Clifton's house and thought to herself at that moment they still were holding on to hope but they would soon have their world crash down around them the officer Missy found had been camped outside of the Clifton house during the search for Maddie the officer followed Missy back inside but entered Josh's room alone to see the horror that Missy had discovered sticking out from under Josh's mattress were Maddy's small feet I have to warn you that the following details of what happened to Little Maddie are especially disturbing and not for the faint of heart Josh had known where Maddie was all along when he was asking Maddy's mother about what was going on when he was handing out flyers when he appeared to be worried about her well-being all that time Josh had known that Maddy's body was hidden under his water bed police found that tape had been used to hold the bed frame together and keep her body from being discovered in addition the shorts she'd been wearing earlier were taken off investigators found a baseball bat hidden behind Josh's dresser and they also found a knife stashed in the room it was also noted that air fresheners were sitting on his nightstand along with freshly burned incense and air freshener spray even more disturbing a flyer about Matty's disappearance had been placed next to the air fresheners what this told the police was that there was a clear attempt to cover up the smell of madd's decomposing body possibly the most disturbing Discovery was that as her body was removed from the bed her hand was still clutching the bed frame meaning that she had still been alive when she was shoved under there had she still been alive when everyone was out looking for her or when Josh was in the street pretending that he didn't know what had happened to Maddie after she left his house we may never know but what is clear is that if Josh had reported what happened Maddie might have lived an autopsy revealed that mdy had been struck three times in the head and it was believed that Josh's recovered baseball bat had been used as a weapon her throat had also been cut with a knife from Josh's room and she was stabbed seven to nine times in the chest though some sources put that number as high as 11 times the autopsy also showed no evidence of an assault despite her underwear being taken off however this detail would come up as a key piece of evidence Josh Phillips was arrested and it was a shock to everyone those who met Josh described him as a quiet but friendly kid with nothing particularly remarkable about him yet within hours he admitted to killing Maddie on the day she was reported missing it was during this confession that Josh gave his account of what happened to Maddie remember this is his side of the story Josh was home alone when Maddie showed up and asked him to play and he knew that he wasn't allowed to have friends over when his parents weren't there the two had been playing baseball in his backyard when Maddie was accidentally hit in the eye by the ball as she started bleeding she also started to cry loudly to calm Maddie down he brought her into his house but she kept screaming which sent Josh into a panic he told the investigators that he was afraid his father would come home at any minute and he would be angry with Josh for letting Maddie come into his house without permission panicking and wanting Maddie to be quiet he grabbed his baseball bat and hit her once or twice hard on the head he then hid her body under his water bed when his father finally came home Josh said that Maddie was still moaning he then dragged her out from the bed and stabbed her in the chest before hiding her body again until his mother found it what many people to this day can't help but wonder and horror about as if Josh slept in his bed on top of madd's body and the answer as terrible as it is seems to be yes for a week let that sink in Josh had no history of nothing that would have ever made anyone suspect him especially his actions when he was helping to look for Maddie but still Josh's version of events didn't quite make sense to investigators for starters he claimed that Maddie shorts and Underpants had been pulled off when he was dragging her inside the house from outside most people can agree as investigators did that his explanation didn't quite seem plausible the tight neck Community was stunned and horrified to learn that the boy that helped search for Maddie just a few days earlier had been her killer all along some started questioning the Philips family about how they hadn't noticed the young girl's body being hidden in their home for almost a week Missy explained that there was nothing out of order for her to suspect anything however there were also signs that something was wrong which only really made sense in retrospect Josh had been especially quiet since Maddie was reported missing but this was just explained away as him being nervous for his friend and scared additionally if you're familiar with this case then you probably heard the police off officers previously searched the Philips house in the days before her body was found the sheriff at the time claimed they searched the house but that the officers never saw anything suspicious how the police and Josh's parents didn't notice the smell of a decomposing corpse is beyond me Josh insisted that he hit Maddie out of fear of his father but the truth behind his home life wasn't revealed until Missy explained it publicly she said that she and Josh walked on eggshells at home because her husband was so intimidating frightening and sometimes over bearing he really didn't like it when any neighborhood children were in his house when an adult wasn't there to supervise but he especially didn't want Josh to spend his time playing with any girls younger than him Missy said he didn't have a fondness of little girls which she never understood also Josh's father Steve never got the chance to explain his side of things because he died in 2000 in a car accident when the case went to trial Josh was charged as an adult Josh's defense argued that what happened to Maddie began as an accident and deteriorated through Panic that bordered on Madness and that he should be charged with manslaughter but the prosecution wasn't buying it first the autopsy didn't find any evidence of bruising on Mattie's face as if she'd been hit in the eye by a baseball in fact there was no evidence that they'd been playing baseball at all second Josh also claimed to have dragged Maddie into the house but there wasn't any dirt on her body which implies that her shorts probably didn't come off from being dragged further more there wasn't any blood in the backyard or anywhere in the house except in Josh's room finally the fact that Maddie had been found in only her shirt and socks indicated that there were at least some inappropriate undertones to the evidence in the end the trial only took about 3 days total the jury found Josh guilty and convicted him of first-degree murder he was sentenced to spend his life in prison with no chance of parole but because of his age at under 16 he wasn't eligible for the death penalty Behind Bars Josh GRE from a teenager to an adult Josh still refuses to talk in detail about Maddy's murder except in 2018 to apologize to mty's family as I've grown up I have learned the value of life I wish to God that I could have known this or understood it when I was 14 had I then none of this would have come about I had no clue what life meant Josh became tearful at several points while reading his apology letter but this does not necessarily indicate that he is expressing truth remorse it's possible that he's putting on an act to prove that he's reformed in order to increase the likelihood that he's given a reduced sentence being exploitative and taking advantage of others to achieve their own ends is a narcissistic trait Josh seems to focus much of his apology not on the victim but instead on himself and his own suffering which could be the result of other narcissistic traits such as grandiosity and entitlement now the story might seem like it ends there but it doesn't in 2017 the case was re sentenced which should have never been a possibility for Josh based on the terms of his first sentence yet in 2012 the Supreme Court had ruled that mandatory life sentences without parole were unconstitutional for juvenile offenders convicted of murder even more horrifying details about the case were exposed at this trial it was revealed that Josh had books about occult subjects in his room in addition it was shared that Josh had been looking at adult content on his computer just a half hour before Mattie's death and that it was violent in nature and may have featured underaged girls Josh may have been influenced by these videos and he may have been fantasizing about acting something similar out for himself this could indicate that the crime was more premeditated rather than something that happened in the Heat of the Moment as Josh originally claimed if this is true he may not have chosen Maddie specifically but instead he took the opportunity when he found himself alone and unsupervised with her Mattie's mother spoke at the trial and asserted that Josh hadn't been after Maddie that Day in 1998 but her other daughter Jesse who was 11 at the time of her younger sister's death you see a photo of Jesse had been found in Josh's room one that Josh must have stolen from the Clifton house at some point before Maddie's death which furthered the idea that he'd been obsessed with the Clifton's other daughter all along Josh's sentence was upheld after the 4-day trial and he remains in prison still this Saga of a case will continue sooner than you might think as Josh will once again be El ible for resentencing in 2023 after spending about 25 years in prison for now at least this case doesn't have a conclusion and it won't for a long time