WARNING, DISTRESSING CONTENT: Eight-year-old Maddie Clifton was brutally murdered by teenage neighbour Joshua Phillips in Florida
Little Maddie was overwhelmed with a baseball bat (Picture: mirror.co.uk)
A assassin, described as “chilling” and “as cool as a cucumber”, brutally killed an eight-year-old woman by beating her with a bat, slitting her throat and hiding her lifeless physique inside his waterbed body.
Joshua Phillips was solely 14 when he dedicated the horrific homicide of Maddie Clifton in 1998. The tragic incident despatched shockwaves via the group as Maddie’s household, police and volunteers frantically looked for her for over every week.
Maddie’s older sister, Jessie Clifton, shared with Information Jax 4: “Her nickname was ‘Giggles’. We fought so much, simply as sisters do, however we beloved one another very a lot.”
Patrol Sergeant Tom Hackney, who was concerned within the seek for Maddie, revealed that he had spoken to Phillips the day earlier than Maddie’s physique was found. He described the encounter as “chilling.”
Hackney informed Information Jax 4: “He was cool as a cucumber. He was completely not shocked. Our engagement with him was really within the bed room the place she was recovered, and he sat on the mattress, petting his canine, and simply was as unemotional, unaffected by regulation enforcement being in his home. It is chilling, fascinated by it now.”, experiences the Mirror US.
Philips’ sentence was subjected to a evaluate to the household’s horror (Picture: WJXT)
Phillips was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with out the potential for parole a yr after the crime.
Nonetheless, in 2017, following a 2012 Supreme Courtroom ruling that deemed necessary life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional, Phillips was re-sentenced. Regardless of this, he acquired one other life sentence, with the potential for evaluate after 25 years.
“I do know that is his proper. I perceive youngsters have a baby mind and never an grownup mind,” expressed Maddie’s sister Jessie.
In 2025, the information of a evaluate of Phillips’ sentence was a devastating blow to Maddie’s household in Northeast Florida. In July, the lawyer of the now 41 yr outdated Phillips requested the choose to postpone his listening to.
Joshua Phillips was convicted for the homicide of little Maddie (Picture: mirror.co.uk)
Maddie’s household had been unequivocal of their opposition to this improvement. Jessie declared her intention to testify at Phillips’ sentence evaluate and skim out a sufferer affect assertion.
She defined: “This time, I am actually going to sit down down and I will take my time and I will write one thing that is, that is going to hopefully make him really feel… I imply, I assume that is not the objective, actually, to make him really feel unhealthy.
“That is not my intention. However I would like him to see how unhealthy I am hurting and that I do not actually care that he is hurting or needs to get out of jail. So, my harm is ceaselessly. His needs to be additionally.”
Sheila DeLongis said that Phillips “knew what he was doing” when he murdered Maddie.
She added: “Maddie did not get a second probability. She did not get to develop up, graduate, fall in love, or have a household of her personal. Maddie’s sentence was remaining. Her killer’s needs to be, too.”
Phillips confessed to the police that Maddie’s dying started as an accident however escalated into homicide as a result of concern of his abusive father. As a part of a sentencing evaluate, his attorneys will try to current their case.
Maddie’s heartbroken sister said: “He knew how badly she was harm, and he might have gotten assist twice, and he or she was nonetheless alive. And that to me, I simply, I am unable to see previous youngster mind, grownup mind, alien mind. I do not, I do not care. I really don’t. I feel you recognize proper from flawed.”
The household’s full assertion forward of Phillips’ evaluate learn: “As a household, we proceed to stay with the devastating lack of Maddie each single day.
Maddie Clifton was murdered in 1998 (Picture: mirror.co.uk)
“It has been greater than 25 years since her life was violently stolen, but time has not healed this ache, it has solely deepened our understanding of what was taken from us.
“Maddie was eight years outdated. She was lively, pleasure, and potential. None of that was spared when she was brutally murdered by our 14 yr outdated neighbour in 1998.
“Right this moment, we’re as soon as once more thrust into the highlight, not by selection, however as a result of the person who took Maddie from us is searching for to have his sentence decreased. He’s again in courtroom for a listening to to schedule a sentencing evaluate that he would not deserve.
Maddie’s household stated Philips’ sentence was ‘remaining’ (Picture: Courtesy of household)
“Allow us to be clear, we don’t help Joshua Phillips being launched. He could have been a juvenile when he dedicated this heinous act, however he made a aware determination to beat, stab, and conceal the physique of an harmless youngster. He knew what he was doing, and he took deliberate steps to cowl it up.
“Justice won’t be served till those that are unaffected are as outraged as those that are. Benjamin Franklin”.
“Maddie did not get a second probability. She did not get to develop up, graduate, fall in love, or have a household of her personal. Maddie’s sentence was remaining. Her killer’s needs to be, too.”
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Susanna Reid with Joshua Phillips at Duval County Jail in Jacksonville, Florida (Picture: ITV)
“It’s emotionally exhausting to proceed revisiting this trauma in courtrooms, in headlines, and in hearings that reopen wounds we by no means requested to have. We ask the general public, the media, and the courtroom to recollect who the true sufferer is. Maddie deserves that dignity.
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“We’re dedicated to making sure her voice isn’t misplaced to authorized technicalities or shifting ignorant opinions. People who know the reality and details would by no means take into account releasing this particular person again into society.
“Maddie’s life mattered, and nonetheless does.”
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