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Hey weirdos, I'm Alina.
I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
and it's morbid in the morning it is but it's one of those that i'm not sure why i kept for the morning because it's not going to start your day out.
Oh, on a great note.
Fantastic. This is a pretty gnarly one that makes me nervous because my tum already hurts.
I know you're having tummy troubles.
I know. What's going on?
I don't know. I think there's just like a random shit going around in the universe.
Yeah, maybe, you know, we saw Corinne and Sabrina from two girls, one ghost. Recently we had a little brekkie with them.
That was so fun. I love them so much. And And Corinne had a shirt on that said, what was the shirt?
And you were like, wow.
I was like, wow, that's relatable.
It said something like, my tummy really hurts, but I'm being brave. I need to get you that so fast. That's how I feel right now.
My tummy hurts, but I'm being really brave about it.
That's how I feel right now.
It was hilarious. That's very much a you shirt.
I got in my car this morning.
I'm like, my tummy really hurts, but I'm being brave. But I'm being really brave about it.
I'm going to drive over and I'll be right there.
Oh, I love it so much. Also, if you haven't listened to Two Girls, One Ghost, what do you do?
them it's a fun spooky ass time and they're wonderful they're so funny go listen to them uh but yeah so ash's tummy hurts but she's being really brave about it thank you so there's that i keep finding and i was saying this this morning to ash that i'm in this phase of life where i can't stay up after the girls go to sleep i sit on the couch and i just pass out yeah and it's been happening for like weeks and i'm like why can't i stay awake see it's funny to me it's like it's very concerning to Elena.
She's like I don't like this.
Yeah I hate it. It's so funny to me because that's been me for like the past like six months to a year.
I go home. I turn on a TV show and five minutes into that TV show I'm just like home.
Hit a Mouth. See usually I'm like I can handle like a few hours of sitting and like doing something else at night but now it's as soon as I sit on that couch I'm out.
We're doing a lot man.
It's not great. I don't love falling asleep sleep like that i gotta figure out you know what it is it's it's a blanket hello i figured it out no it's i'm not doing anything physically for my body right now like i've i've taken a hiatus from like doing any kind of physical activity with my body oh see that's not the problem for me and i think that's a problem for me because i think when i exercise you feel like when i do the bike or something and i'm on like a good routine with it i feel like it like energizes me okay in a way that That I don't think is happening right now.
So maybe I think I stopped when I got, like, sick at one point.
I was like, oh, I got to take a break.
Yeah. And then I just didn't do it again.
And I've been meaning to.
Do it, girl. I got to do it.
Because I think it helps.
We got walking treads for our desks.
Yeah. So I think it's necessary.
I need some physical activity.
Yeah, walk a mile in these Louboutins.
Exactly. In these Louboutins.
Yeah, that's Iggy. Are you walking in Louboutins?
No, not me. I was like, where?
But Iggy is. No, I'm just walking a mile.
but no i i think it really is like part of it at least maybe i'm hoping that physical activity will make i think it will make me feel better as like yes in general but i don't know you might still fall asleep early maybe but maybe i'll feel better about it also you you're not giving yourself enough credit you have two brand new puppies that that's true i think that's definitely having to do with it you they're doing great by the way yeah but like you learned how to heard that you like your youngest learned how to sleep so then you were sleeping for a minute it and your body was probably getting
used to that and then you were like, oh, you know, it's a good idea.
Let's fuck this up entirely and get two dogs.
And that's probably what happened.
So you're probably people get tired sometimes.
I know. It's wild. I don't love it.
Listen, all you Capricorns out there, you might feel this sudden feeling that you've never felt before called tired.
It sucks. Lay down.
All my Capricorns can attest like Like it's, we don't like it.
Just lay down for a minute.
We don't like it because it's not, it's not conducive to productivity and that really annoys me.
What about a 20 -minute nap?
That's like super good for productivity.
Maybe you should start doing that during the day.
Maybe it's time for you to develop a nap time, oldie.
Maybe you've got to have a nap time.
Maybe it's time for your nap.
It's time for my nap, everybody.
I'll wake you up with some oatmeal.
With some cream of wheat.
Some cream of wheat.
i used to live with this lady that loved cream of wheat you know it's it's a real it's a real food i don't know what else to say you're like you know what cream of wheat exists it's that you can eat it so i don't know i don't know if you should you can i don't know if you should but why don't we get into this terrible terrible case that will probably keep me from sleeping even further oh fantastic let's do that um this one is wild someone suggested and a few people suggested it and i was like and when i saw them suggested i was like i'm sorry what because they were like can you do the bone breaker
case they didn't i said what excuse me and then i looked it up and i said what excuse me i didn't know this existed oh no and this is real rough so let's begin july 10th 1994 we got a 90s case it's the 90s this is when the body of 14 year old Chris Steiner was found floating in the Wisconsin River he was discovered after a nearly week -long desperate search for him who had and he had mysteriously disappeared seemingly into thin air from his parents home in Baraboo Wisconsin his cause of death was officially labeled as death by drowning and the theory police were going with was that he snuck out
of his house by his own volition that night to go swimming with friends doubt it they ruled it was just just a tragic accident yeah there was no according to them there was no other evidence to prove anything else but was it an accident no or was this the beginning of a case that has torn my entire nervous system to shreds the latter it is that's literally what i wrote in my notes i wrote it was the latter i am a psychic you are we are one so let's begin with chris steiner's death because this is so tragic on the way i reading about his parents just ruined my my whole yeah I feel like with a case
like this in any case in general where somebody loses like a teenager in their life that's horrible in the middle of the night right he was in his home and then he just wasn't right and then they found him floating in a river a week later and they had no answers like at first this was just an accidental drowning and his parents never believed that well because parents know they just know but they had to wait like a long time to figure out what actually happened to him and it's terrible worse so on the morning of july 4th 1994 kathy steiner chris's mom went to wake up her son 14 year old christian known
as chris steiner who would have been asleep in his bedroom at this point so she went in his room she opened up the door and she found that the room was empty now chris was supposed to work a 7 a .m shift at mcdonald's that morning so alarm bells immediately went off uh because he had just started that job and he was excited about that job so he wouldn't have just failed so kathy informed her husband george that chris wasn't in his bed and together they searched the house during the search they found that the window screens in their other son's bedroom had been sliced oh i don't like that yeah and both
the front and back doors to the house were unlocked oh shit yeah and there was no sign of chris anywhere so they immediately called the police to report him missing but imagine this this whatever happened this person came through their other child's bedroom into this child's bedroom like how do you wrap your brain around that fucked now according to george and kathy they had last seen chris around 10 p .m the night before he said his father his father had gone in to check on him in his bedroom and he was in there yeah and he said quote he had fallen asleep on his bed wearing the clothes he had
on that day and kathy was like that was very usual especially especially since Chris had worked a long shift at McDonald's that evening.
And it was his first day on the new job, so he was like, he was exhausted.
So he just passed out on his bed and his clothes.
We just let him do it, whatever.
Now, initially, George Steiner suspected that the window screen to the first -floor bedroom had possibly been cut by one of Chris's friends because he was thinking they convinced him to sneak out of the house to go swimming.
okay I think they were hopeful that this was just some like really shitty decision making by his friends right and when police checked with Chris's friends though they all were like yeah no like we did not see Chris last night and none of them had even seen him that night and they were like we definitely didn't go to the house they all had like things that I don't think all of them had like rock solid alibis but I think they were like we were home right so now they ruled out the a potential for his having simply snuck out because it just wasn't looking like that was it and investigators kind of shifted
their focus to maybe not somebody intruded into the house and came and got him but instead chris must have run away and slipped the screen on his way out yeah it's the 90s and he's a teenager of course he ran away now and it was so common at the time i don't it still is every once in a while you'll hear something where they're like they probably just ran away and it's like how often does that happen yeah i don't think that many people are running yeah it's but even the detectives working this case were having a little trouble believing that themselves because they were like it just doesn't fit
with any of this like you said the slice screen was weird and they said that one of them said quote he was believed to be a runaway but there was not there's not been any sign of him in a few days that's what um saw I think it's soak is it s -a -u -k county yes so county so great so county sheriff's detective Mary Ward had said I've said that to the press, that there was just no sign of him since then.
Yeah. And that didn't really add up because it's like if he ran away, you would hear from him or someone would have. Yeah.
Like where's he running to?
That's a thing. No one hears from him.
Like he probably like, if that was the case, would have hitchhiked with somebody or stopped.
Yeah. Or going to stay with someone.
Yeah. Like where is he staying?
Right. And according to his parents, they said he had never run away before and they couldn't think of any reason that he would before or now.
and they said there was no stressful events no triggers that could really have set him off everything was pretty normal he had just started a new job yeah he had just vanished so like i mentioned before the day he'd gone missing chris had started that new job at mcdonald's and he was working with his older brother jim oh and he was super excited about being out of school because it was summertime and he was looking forward to earning all this money at his first job like this This was a very exciting thing for him.
Totally. And Kathy Steiner told reporters, quote, he even had it figured out how much he was going to make working Sundays and holidays.
At the time, he had just finished eighth grade and was eager to start high school.
Thank God, just finished eighth grade.
Just finished eighth grade.
That's, oh, that's awful.
A child. Yes. And when you look up pictures of him, he's so cute.
Aw. And friends and family worked closely with detectives.
They were very forthcoming with any information.
nobody seemed to be holding back anything or being shady well that's good and they all spent a week all his friends and family were posting missing flyers around baraboo in the surrounding counties the police were on it they were doing tons of searches and george and kathy steiner were speaking to every media outlet that they could get their faces in front of that's i can't imagine I don't know how hard that would be.
That is, I, my brain can't even wrap around that because to have to talk about it and beg people, like they were literally saying like, if you have any information, please come forward. Like if you know where our son is, like just begging for help.
To have to do that.
And unfortunately the search came to an end on July 10th.
That's when Chris's body was found floating in the Wisconsin river by two jet skiers.
According to Sheriff James Smith, quote, the body was quite decomposed when it was found, and investigators actually had to use dental records to identify him.
Oh, my God. Because remember, this is July, and he'd been in the water for a week.
So the autopsy was conducted the following day, and the pathologist on the case was Dr. Robert Huntington, and he speculated that Chris's body had been in the water at least two days, but probably longer.
He determined that the cause of death was probably drowning, but he said the advanced decomposition from being in the water made it kind of difficult to determine if anything else had happened.
So detectives knew where the body was discovered, but where it went into the water was something that they weren't sure.
It was still a mystery because it could have floated a long way.
That's the thing. That's what's tough when it's like water.
Yeah and it's like so they couldn't tell where he went into the water and they couldn't tell if he had gone into the water already dead or they couldn't tell where the drowning had occurred nothing like that.
Oh man. And there didn't appear at the time to be any signs of physical trauma like bruising or cuts so they looked at it and said this seems like an accidental drowning unfortunately there was really only minor abrasions but they said that could have been from being in the water okay so given there was no sign of struggle in the home i don't know why they're ignoring that slice screen i was like that seems struggly yeah uh no apparent trauma to chris's body the sheriff's office started operating on the assumption that steiner and his friends were out partying and were too afraid to come forward
with any information that's nice which doubt everyone involved great also these are like 14 year old boys and girls that you're being like Like, I think you're just too scared to admit that you got him killed.
And it's like, yeah, like what?
And they're all like, we were not with him.
Like, are you kidding?
Can you imagine that being put on you at 14?
Sheriff's deputies searched the shoreline and the surrounding area.
They were hoping to find a campsite, a party spot that they could be like, here it is.
This is where he went into the water.
But the river had actually risen considerably in the days before he was found.
So if there was any evidence of that, it was gone.
gone now in the absence of any evidence to prove that anything else but accidental drowning had happened here the columbia sheriff county sheriff's department went with the accidental drowning theory and the case was closed wow that's just pretty quick that's it this was very little comfort to the steiners because obviously that it was quick there was like a lot lot of oh like it seems like that's probably it like that's not very comforting and they still had no answers no real answers what had happened they didn't find a spot they had no one that has admitted that they were out partying with him
or that they had come and got him and they know there's something they know that's not like him yeah and they were like we don't have any answers all you're telling me is that you're pretty sure that he drowned like if anything you're just making more confusion.
It's awful. And they were just left to wonder what happened to him.
That's terrible. And their grief and confusion was made even worse because there was odd evidence left in the house that night that he went missing.
There was the slit in the screen and there was also muddy shoe prints suggesting that someone had to come into the house while everyone was sleeping and Chris had left with whoever it was.
But there was a lack of any other mess or struggle evidence evidence which indicated that he knew whoever had come in and left with them willingly right so that was even weirder that they were like it seems like somebody else was here but again oh that's freaky yeah isn't that so spooky yes and it's also like why not look further into those footprints that's the thing who was the who was that right like you would like they know chris's size and clearly like if they're they're like no that wasn't chris's size then who the fuck who did that yeah and take a look at his shoes did he have that kind
of shoe with that tread on the bottom but later a little further yeah and later george his dad said quote what hurts so much is that you know there were other kids with him something happened out there something terrible happened out there what we don't understand is how somebody could have left him there without calling oh and that's what they were left to think happened that everybody just left him somewhere that's awful and george and kathy steiner had to bury their son at saint joseph cemetery in baraboo on july 14th 1994 more than a year was going to pass before they would get any more information about what actually
happened to chris diner oh god i am absolutely obsessed with a sweet treat after dinner and my favorite sweet treat right now is my MyMochi.
It's mine, not yours.
Just kidding. You can have some too.
This is a cool creamy scoop of ice cream wrapped in a soft chewy dough.
It's like a sweet little ice cream dumpling or ravioli.
I'm obsessed. It's pillowy.
It's satisfying. I feel indulged.
I just love it so much. I really am obsessed with the strawberry flavor right now.
MyMochi is only around 70 calories per piece, which like, hello, that's amazing.
MyMochi is gluten -free and each box has six perfectly perfectly portioned mochi snacks.
Do I eat two a night?
Yeah, yeah I do because they're that good.
And guess what? My Mochi is the number one mochi ice cream in the U .S. of A.
The strawberry flavor is bursting with fresh picked fruit flavor that tastes incredibly refreshing.
I love, love, love them after dinner.
This August, look for the purple box of My Mochi ice cream at your local grocery and feel joyfully chill with the coolest treat around, my mochi.
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Plus, streamline your workflow with built -in appointment scheduling and email head to squarespace .com slash morbid for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code morbid to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain so let's that brings us to july 30th 1995 a year later 9 -1 -1 dispatchers in columbia county received a very scary and unusual call from a panicked teenage boy oh he claimed he'd been kidnapped tortured and locked in a closet for two days by his teenage neighbor joe clark what yep the dispatcher traced the call to a home and officers arrived at the scene
very quickly only a couple minutes later where in this scene was joe clark's home where he shared with his parents i was gonna say he lives with his parents correct this is where they discovered 13 year old thaddeus thad phillips stop he was disoriented and suffering from severe dehydration broken legs and other bruises and injuries holy shit and he had broken out of a closet now first responders rushed him to st claire hospital he was immediately taken into surgery for the broken legs they basically had to save his legs they were so broken wow like they were so shattered in so many places that they
weren't sure they were going to be able to save his legs holy shit that's like on On another level.
And this is like a child.
Yeah. Like an actual child.
Meanwhile, Baraboo police waited for 17 -year -old Joe Clark to return home.
And when he returned home, they immediately took him into custody without incident.
Who the fuck is this kid?
Oh. So Thad Phillips had a terrifying ordeal.
His ordeal had begun two days before this, shortly after midnight, on Friday night, July 28th.
thad was watching television with his sister his five -year -old sister by the way oh um and this was the last time either of his parents saw him before he went to bed oh my god this is wild because these this case is like these teenage boys are in their own home right that's the scariest thing to me like they're not just they're not out they're not walking down the street they are in their own fucking homes like he's hanging out with his five -year -old sister yeah now at some some point thad had fallen asleep on the couch with his five -year -old sister right as we just started talking about that but he
was with his five -year -old sister too like they both had fallen asleep on the couch that's adorable too and he was awoken in the middle of the night and he thought he was awoken by his parents trying to lead him into his bedroom yeah so this was not his parents this was his teenage neighbor joe clark who had walked into his fucking house and woken him up on the couch what he lived like a half a mile down the street from the phillips house and that didn't see like couldn't like understand that this was him he was disoriented he was only half awake so he didn't really like fight the hecker question a lot
when clark helped him off the couch and out the door oh god and he had guided him down the street to the clark house and into his second floor bedroom joe's what now at that point like he started had started waking up and was just like like, what the fuck is going on?
But at the... And then Thad's father, Donald Phillips, woke up around 4 a .m. and he went to the living room to make sure the children had gone to sleep in their beds.
And he only found his five -year -old daughter sleeping on the couch and no Thad.
And he was, like, never would he have left his five -year -old sister alone sleeping on a couch. Like, he never would have done that.
He would have carried her into a room.
Of course. So he was, like, what the fuck is going on?
And more confusing, his shoes, his sneakers were exactly where he'd left them earlier that evening.
So wherever he went, he went barefoot.
Oh my God. Yeah. He was like he, that was his pair of shoes.
How haunting would that have been?
Yeah. So the Phillips had only recently moved to the area a few months earlier too.
Oh my God. Like a welcome to the neighborhood.
And neither Donald or, nor his wife really felt comfortable going to a lot of the neighbors for help because they didn't know them.
Yeah. And they were a little, at this point, they were probably concerned.
Like I do, I don't even know these people.
Is it one of them? Right.
yeah so they started they spent the entire morning checking any place they thought Thad could have gone like the Columbia County Fair the Baraboo swimming pool they went to a camping spot at the Baraboo River and they spent the rest of the most of the day searching for their son but when they couldn't find him Donald Phillips called Baraboo police to report him missing and at no time during this search did it occur to either of Thad's parents or anyone else for that matter that the the boy was being held only less than a mile away from their home.
That is unbelievable.
In a teenager's closet.
And the parents had no idea.
Oh, yeah. We'll talk.
So by the time they'd arrived in Joe Clark's, excuse me, the time that he had arrived in Joe Clark's bedroom, Thad was definitely, like I said, more awake and more like what the fuck's going on.
So he was very confused about why he was being brought there in the middle of the night.
And Thad had seen Clark in the neighborhood.
hood they've never really spoken oh like he was like i'm stranger i've seen you but like what the fuck is going on and they had a four -year age difference so like they never really would have hung out or been friends anyways but clark told dad he just wanted to hang out and that's why he had brought him to his house that's why i abducted you i just want to hang out dad accepted the explanation i think it was cut probably because he was so out of it yeah but after a very short period of time he was like I would like to go home like I'm it's like 3 a .m. and to be honest he might have accepted the explanation in my
opinion because he was like you're terrifying yeah that's what I'm not gonna flip out here I'm just gonna be like cool let's hang out that's exactly what I thought when you said that but he was like I would like to go home and this is when Clark lost it oh no he shoved Thad to the bed and began attacking him and months later Joe Clark clark told a judge he'd blinked out okay and didn't remember what happened after he pushed him onto the bed i bet and he said when he woke when he woke up he said that that was belly aching about his legs um what which joe clark is such a manipulative piece of shit
sounds like it like i love my favorite excuse for these fuckers as always i blacked out i don't remember so wild that you just blacked out no that doesn't happen yeah you you went out of your way to break into this boy's house and steal him off the couch next to his five -year -old sister and then you just blacked out but then you just you didn't mean to hurt him though like nothing was going to occur like you're an idiot now according to the report filed with the sock sock soak soak that's really hard to say it's probably like sauk sauk i think that's probably more like it sauk county sheriff Yeah,
that makes more sense.
Sheriff's department.
Once Thad was on the bed, Joe Clark, this is really graphic, by the way.
I just want to point this out.
If you don't like bones and breaking bones.
Oh, I don't. Can I go?
I mean, hopefully the name of the thing kind of made you stay away if that's something you don't want to listen to.
But Joe Clark grabbed him by his left ankle and began twisting until the bones in his ankle broke.
Goodbye. bye over the next two days clark subjected thad phillips to brutal outbursts of violence and that included joe repeatedly jumping on his legs causing fractures to both femur bones holy shit femur bones is so thick yeah how like is joe a big kid or no um that's the thing he's like not a like massive kid no but it's like it was just the rage and violence that he had i'm like where the fuck or your parents he also caused knee fractures and dislocation ankle fractures and dislocation and tibial fractures in both lower legs so he broke his femur bones on both legs and his tibia on both legs
knee things freaking me out every part of both of his legs was shattered that is an absolutely insane months later dr michael plute who was the surgeon who performed thad's first two surgeries said to the sheriff's department that quote the force used to break thad's bones was equivalent of thad having been in a car accident oh my god yeah and there was more injuries on top of that like he had contusions he had abrasions and he was also severely dehydrated because he wouldn't eat or drink anything during the time because he was scared that clark was going to poison him yeah i i would think the same
thing now when he wasn't physically torturing thad and breaking his bones clark was taking immense pleasure and psychologically tormenting him joe told bad quote he was fascinated by busting people's bones what and that he had done this to at least two other boys one of whom he said was chris steiner and did that know and chris he was like uh i know that name like he'd heard of it yeah oh and at one point he said quote clark had exposed himself this is very upsetting by the way he had exposed himself and proceeded to masturbate in front of thad and placed a pillow over thad's face to smother him
though it's unclear whether he was doing this in an attempt to kill him what the fuck is wrong with this kid what you find out is that like this kid joe clark and he's not a kid and 17 no he's an animal he's a fucking monster he literally got off on suffering like watching someone suffer like he's a straight up monster oh my god yeah on sunday july 30th joe had left the had to leave the house so he carried thad's body like broken body and you know this guy wasn't carrying him in a nice way so this guy This poor kid, Thad, has two shattered legs from the waist down.
They are just broken.
He must have been in like complete shock.
Oh, I can't imagine the pain.
And like, oh my God.
I can't even imagine.
And he had carried him to a closet in his bedroom.
And after binding Thad's legs with a bandage, he locked him in there.
What the fuck? Yeah.
This is like, oh my God, this is unimaginable.
It really is. this the fact that somebody could do this but a 17 year old like this sounds like a movie that i would never watch and one that you would be like that's insane that's like because because no way exactly that's why i wouldn't want to watch it yeah and so that is in the closet with two broken legs he's been psychologically and physically tortured it's dehydrated dehydrated as hell and he sees a guitar in the closet and he's like well this is my only chance so he uses the guitar car to break a hole through the door like bust through the door how this kid had any strength to do that i
have no idea and he was able to unlock it he dragged himself down the stairs with two broken legs what and you know his legs were banging on every step along the way stop it he found a telephone and he called 9 -1 -1 holy shit and by the way no parents around thank you i was that was my next question the phillips family were relieved that that had been found and they raced to st claire hospital but they found that doctors were now trying to put several rods and pins and stabilizers in thad's legs which they were like what the fuck like what do you mean and donald phillips told investigators that he'd
never seen joe clark before donald is the father and he said as far as he knew clark wasn't friends with his son he was like i don't know who this kid is right like i've never seen him and at the time phillips was like this must be some kind of like one -time freak attack like what the hell is this like everybody was just like he must have snapped like because they hadn't seen anything like this and they hadn't heard thad say hey he said he did this to chris steiner oh shit now while doctors went to work on saving thad's legs again they had to work to save them they were thinking they were gonna have to
amputate both of his legs i can't imagine like what shape he was in oh my god and it looks like he like played sports yeah he's a little cutie and he's and mentally what his state was in i can't i can't even imagine he probably had to like learn how to walk again because he was like awful he would like berate him and scream at him he would like say awful things and then he's standing over him like masturbating while he's suffering like so fucked up that the trauma how do you get past that that's like layers and layers and layers of trauma well sheriff's deputies transported joe clark to a juvenile
detention center and they sat down for an interview which i'm sure was a terrifying interview wild now at no time during the arrest interviews or trial did joe clark really become forthcoming or honest with anybody i'm not surprised um yeah and initially clark was held on kidnapping charges obviously which gave detectives a little more time to investigate other potential charges and according to clark he'd seen that in the yard a couple of times on on previous occasions and went to the phillips house after midnight on the 29th after seeing the phillips car is absent from their house the fuck yeah
so he's an actual predator he's like a stalker like he was he was watching thad phillips yeah in his own fucking yard on several occasions then waits for it to look like his parents aren't home steals him off the fucking couch this guy had I know he's doing much worse things, but it's like he had no idea if the parents were home or not.
And he's just leaving his five -year -old sister on the couch. Yeah.
Oh, doesn't give a shit.
Yeah, he doesn't give a shit.
If you have the audacity to walk into somebody's home like that, you don't care about anything.
He said when he showed up at the house at midnight, the door was unlocked.
And so Clark just let himself in the house.
Yeah, it's definitely your house now.
know and he found thad sleeping on the couch with his five -year -old sister and he said he quote assisted him off the couch oh yeah you're so great and then he said he walked slash carried him into his house like uh abducted yeah i think i believe that's the word you're searching for now beyond that he said that he again blinked out yeah and doesn't remember anything that happened but two days doesn't remember a damn thing now based on thad's report that clark because now Now he had said, hey, by the way, because he was with it enough to say, by the way, he said he did this to Chris Steiner.
Sheriff's investigators in Columbia County reopened their investigation into Chris Steiner's death and were very eager to find out what Joe Clark knew.
So when Steiner's body was discovered in the Wisconsin River that previous year, again, he had been in the water for nearly a week, and the decomposition was considerable.
That's why it made that autopsy so difficult.
called because your bones deteriorate well it's like right they don't deteriorate but it's like it's tough to figure out what is post -mortem injury and what is perimortem pre -mortem like there's no it's hard yeah it's very hard especially in a river like that when it can you can slam into things and break bones i'm a little confused why broken bones weren't discovered here that you're noted from what i but but i don't know okay i'm just saying to me i'm a little And a full autopsy had been done previously.
Yeah. So that's confusing to me.
That is. But that's just me.
That's weird. That's weird. That's suspicious.
That is a little weird. So Steiner's body was actually exhumed and reexamined for this.
I was thinking that.
And it was x -rayed this time, which I'm like, it was an x -rayed before?
Yeah, weird. But I imagine that's probably because they went in with a pretty preconceived notion that he had accidentally drowned and had left his house on his own volition.
Yeah, so perhaps it wasn't quite a full autopsy.
So this is a good lesson for not going into something like this with a preconceived narrative of what went down.
Right, like that's kind of your whole job not to do that.
So they did the X -ray and, huh, after an X -ray, the coroner reported that Steiner had indeed suffered broken knees and broken ankles, very similar to the injuries that Thad Phillips had.
Holy shit. And the findings of the second autopsy and their implications communications came as no surprise to kathy steiner chris steiner's mom right she had always suspected clark what yep she said quote he was the last one to talk to chris that night and she said he wanted him to go somewhere with him but chris refused he also knew that chris's brother was not going to be home that night oh which like kathy kathy knew kathy fucking and that's why he broke in through the brother's room because he wasn't gonna be the brother wasn't gonna be there that night oh my god this kid like he did what's
the btk thing that he said he would do he would like troll i think he called fucking trolling neighborhoods it's true he's like oh it's so disgusting and according to kathy joe clark had been hanging around her son a lot in the days before he disappeared and she said that clark was quote very domineering and said he quote hung around younger boys because he could bully them ew so he's a disgusting predator yeah he's a is what he is as the coroner's office conducted their second autopsy of chris steiner's body investigators served a search warrant at the clark home in fairfield wisconsin among
the evidence seized in the search was quote a 48 by 40 inch plywood board with quote -unquote satanic writing an illustration scribbled on it a film canister quote with possible marijuana seeds remember it's the 90s yes um a leg brace and a body brace several horror films on vhs which by the way dave found out which horror films were like which ones were they and i love it because dave when he wrote this to me was like these are the films that were found so among other things jill clark had terrible taste in horror movies it was witchcraft okay which is i don't know which um year there's a few
witchcraft movies but none of them look like they're pretty awesome one I want you to look this one up guys children shouldn't play with dead things oh what the fuck it looks if you look at the IMDB page for that it has like a little trailer for it or some little clip it looks ridiculous and so weird ew even the cover I'm like what and he also had close encounters of the third kind so he's not killing it in the horror game here definitely not on.
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So that was found. There was also, and this is the most chilling to me, they found several sketches of house interiors in the area.
What? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. That is, that's like some Angelus level motherfucking creep shit.
Bringing it to the rewatcher.
They, what? Sketches of house interiors.
That's on a different, like, what the fuck?
and it's like was he sitting there fucking drawing people's houses in their house and it's like or was he to me i'm like was he going around the outside of people's houses at night and like peeking in and like getting the layout that way right before going in probably like what so he could go back home and study it and say like oh i'm gonna go i'm gonna go in this way and i'll leave this way this door usually is unlocked like what the horrifying that is so chilling horrifying to me oh they found that broken guitar that that said he used to get out of there and they also discovered three lists
that were titled get to now can wait and leg thing and each of these lists had several names of local boys in the area my god were they ever told i don't know if they were ever told i hope they weren't but they were literally on You were either on a list get to now can wait or leg thing.
So he was like predatorily watching young boys in the area and like putting together lists and then going off of those lists.
This is one of the wildest cases I've ever heard. It is.
And it's like, again, where the fuck are the parents?
Not even we're going to find out where they were these two days, But where the fuck were you before that?
That your kid is drawing sketches of interiors of homes and writing lists of boys in the area, creeping on boys in the area, and you have no idea?
Yeah, like, what are you doing?
Like, you gotta do something here.
Oh my God. Now, with Clark being relatively young, 17 years old, his crimes being fucking brutal to the point of stunning seasoned investigators, and his history of getting in trouble, there was some pause as to whether the soak soak soak i can't fucking say that word south county juvenile justice system was even equipped to handle a case like this because it was also going to attract a lot of public attention right and interest but after two days of debate and consideration judge virginia wolf which i was like what a badass name go ruled that joseph clark would be tried as an adult yeah if he
wasn't i would have been so pissed because that's an adult crime that shit is adults everything that you've done and on september 7th 1995 he appeared before a judge in circuit court where he was charged with attempted first degree intentional homicide burglary kidnapping intentionally causing great bodily harm to a child mayhem causing mental harm to a child and two counts of child enticement damn if convicted on all counts he was going to to get about 170 years in prison.
I hope he got all of those.
So the waiver of Joe Clark into the adult court meant that the offender's name could be released to the public.
So of course this made people very interested in this case and knowing what the fuck his motives were.
Right. What is going on here?
It's wild. So according to Clark, Joe Clark's father, Ron Clark, we're getting into to the parents now joe was in a motorcycle accident in may of 1993 the year earlier in which quote he was thrown 30 to 40 feet through the air and landed on his head and he said potentially causing some brain trauma and his father said that maybe he had kind of snapped he was a real hot -tempered after that now the following year oh there's more her face there's more y 'all so the following year things took another really difficult turn for um joe clark according to his parents okay he had gotten into this car this motorcycle
accident and the following year chris steiner was found dead apparently kids at school immediately and regularly taunted him about the death saying that he had done it yeah he did so kids at school knew he had done it what the they didn't know like they didn't have the evidence he didn't admit it to them but they were like this fucker did it wow he must have been like i can't imagine being like oh yeah like that was definitely my fellow classmate that tortured that boy to death he for sure did it like what yeah and his father said to reporters i even heard with my own ears a girl come up to him
in the parking lot at school and say to him did you kill chris steiner well and i want to say parents does that concern you at all that his entire peer group believes that he killed one one of their own like what is making them think that like i know kids can be fucked i understand that but maybe sit him down and be like why are they saying this like yeah because why would they say some kind of reason behind that talk to him yeah why are you not talking to him why are you just going wow fuck that's crazy that's wild that's real fucked up like sit down with your fucking child and go why does your
entire school think you killed this boy right because if this This is just like a like a witch hunt here, which is what they describe it as later.
Oh, my God. Yeah. Then we need to do something about it.
But like if this is based off of things you have done or said, then you need help, my boy.
Like that should be the discussion.
Let's get you some help.
We need to get you some help.
Even if you are falsely admitting to this or alluding to that you did it, you need to get help.
And we are here to help you.
Exactly. They did none of that.
so during her testimony at in the phillips trial joe's mother bertha clark said to the jury that joe was genuinely distraught over steiner's death and it caused a noticeable change to him but she said but what i think is when she says he was genuinely distraught i think what she means is he was trying to act distraught yeah because it's like you're forgetting that he did it right Right, like you're letting go of that whole fact.
Let's not say he was genuinely feeling any kind of feelings about that because it's like, no, he brutally tortured this child.
To death. So, no. And she said Joey was hurt because his friend had died and people were trying to blame him for it.
Could you imagine how that would make him feel?
But Bertha, girl, he did it.
Like, I'm sorry, girl, what?
So they didn't believe that he did it.
No, and also it's like, I'm sorry, can you imagine how it makes chris steiner's parents feel right to know that your child your 17 year old child abducted him abducted him from his home from his bed in his bedroom dragged him to this house and tortured him for god knows how long i'd also be like hey bertha what do you think about um all the fucking images he has sketched of uh your neighbor's interiors of people's houses what do you think about that what about the lists Of boy's names Like that doesn't concern you at all Like we're not going to touch that Let's not put on rose colored glasses
Now according to the parents The harassment at school Became so bad That they had to withdraw him From Baraboo High School And he was unable to Before he was even able To finish his senior year Well don't murder people And that won't happen to you Yeah and when they pulled him Out of school They said he worked A few entry level farm jobs He had some stints as a cook And dishwasher at a local restaurant Which is horrifying but joe's parents also came under a little scrutiny after this one would think because they were trying to figure out everybody's trying to figure out what the fuck is an explanation for this kid's
violent anti -social behavior here and how the fuck did this happen in your home and you had no idea exactly now on the evening that thad was abducted from his home the clarks were visiting their daughter in the nearby portage and they weren't planning to return until the following day so they had left joe alone in the house for most of the weekend his father did say to reporters and again he's 17 so like leaving him alone is not a like a felony here no that's not crazy his father told reporters we called friday night so it's not like we were out of touch with him yeah so that's fine whatever i'm
not worried about that no me either but according to investigators who conducted the initial search of the clark home the house was in a state of big disarray when when they arrived the kitchen was strewn with beer bottles and when they looked in joe's personal journal which was taken into evidence sure he details his parents extreme alcoholism oh and he's at one point he says mom and dad are downstairs getting drunk again i don't like admitting it not even in my journal that's sad it is sad now according to joe his mother drank drank routinely during an interview she was like he she drank routinely
and intensely to the point of passing out all the time wow she said that's not true she had never drank to the point of passing out that's not true and of course the press and public at this point are hearing all this stuff and they're speculating on clark's possible motive and the circumstances that led him to become this but they were going to have to wait for the actual trial to get any real into his psychology and they were going to get it oh god so initially joe clark's trial for the crimes against thad phillips were going to begin in early september and it was going to be presented in two
parts the first was going to be basically to determine did he commit these crimes and the second was going to say did he do so because of quote mental defect or disease so insanity but when he appeared before a circuit court judge on september 5th 1996 joe pleaded no contest to of the charges against him interesting so the guilt and innocence phase was moot now they didn't need it now all they had to do was determine whether he was mentally incapacitated when he abducted tortured and attempted to kill thad phillips so the trial to determine his competency began september 16th 1996 during this time
his defense attorney mark frank presented the case case for insanity.
Frank's case really rested largely on that head trauma thing and the potential brain injury he suffered when he was thrown from, I think it was a dirt bike more than a motorcycle in 1993.
According to medical records, he suffered a blood clot above the covering of the brain, not below it, which made a quick recovery after surgery.
But since the accident, Frank told told the jury that Joe Clark, quote, has had and continues to have an abnormal condition of the mind.
Now, according to Frank, the defense attorney, the injuries that he got from the accident required treatments, including having arteries to the brain cauterized, which could affect mental processes.
He called several witnesses who also gave testimony saying that there were dramatic changes in his behavior.
And in the years since the accident, he had bad hallucinations, psychotic behavior, suicidal impulses, delusions, social impairment and personality.
Wow. These are all none of them are experts.
They're all just people.
Oh, okay. So unfortunately for the defense, under cross -examination, several of these witnesses were a little less effective than they were when they had been initially presented by the defense.
Joe's mother, Bertha, for example, and this part annoys me how they went about this because I think there was just a better way to go about it, but that's just me.
Okay. Bertha had to walk back a lot of statements about his injuries because she made them seem worse and worse and worse and definitely was overplaying them.
Sure. uh but when prosecutor pat barrett said came to cross -examine her they basically said that the woman's eighth grade education could not be expected to understand arcane medical terminology okay well and it's like like fuck off i don't think we need to do that because i don't care if you have an eighth grade education or what if it's your child like you know you know what i mean like i don't think going on i don't think that's a great way to go about it i think that's kind of of like poking yeah it is it feels like well and i think they were i think they were treating her that way probably
because of what had come out that's the thing that's just kind of like and actually to demonstrate this they handed her a paperclip and a ruler on the stand and asked her to tell the paperclip size in centimeters okay so they're humiliating her that's the thing i don't think humiliation is necessary no i don't either situation i don't understand that and it makes me uncomfortable yeah that's the thing it makes me uncomfortable i was like that's not a good i wouldn't feel good about that no like it's just i understand that like we're trying to prove that she's really not a great witness but like
you're taking mansplaining to the next level and there's very easy like she you can we can tell that she is lying and over exaggerating things and that she is not a great credible witness and if you can do that without pointing to her education and that's the thing you're just you're kind of going for like low fruit that exactly that's what what it feels like to me but whatever um and although she was not an effective witness when it came to describing the physical trauma her son suffered in the accident uh she did insist that she'd seen a big change in her son after the accident which could absolutely
be true she said there's something terribly wrong he needs psychiatric treatment which is like okay correct did you try to get him any yeah the answer is no and if you were that concerned you would have yeah Yeah, and Barrett countered this statement by producing a big amount of reports from various school and social service agencies who had all done assessments of Joe in previous years after he had punched another student and threatened to kill a teacher, among other things.
So there were warning signs here.
And the reports contradicted the claim that Joe required considerable care after the accident.
Totally contradicted it.
And also the fact that he had been he was evaluated for psychological impairments after that as well.
And there was it was an unremarkable report, like not at all.
So it doesn't look like we're getting this insanity defense.
Exactly. And Barrett pointed out, while Bertha Clark may see a need for psychological treatment now, his parents had at no time tried to get him help before this.
Yeah. Before sitting on the stand and screaming at everybody that he needs help.
Seems convenient. None of them had even lifted a finger to try to get him help.
It shouldn't take your son murdering or kidnapping another child and holding them hostage to make you realize that.
To suddenly go, you know what, he needs help.
And it's like, okay, well.
Too late. Sometimes I know it can be hard to get help.
Of course. But you didn't even make the effort.
Right. There's no evidence of them ever making an effort.
That's shitty. And the problem with the case put together by the defense was that it relied almost exclusively on the testimony of just regular witnesses, like lay witnesses.
Experts. Yeah, no expertise to speak on physical, mental, or emotional health of this child before or after the head injury.
And they had four psychologists evaluate Joe Clark after his arrest, and none of them were willing to support a diminished capacity defense.
So that tells you everything you need to know.
And as if the prosecution's well -executed for the most part, aside from that paperclip humiliation, they're well -executed cross -examinations of the defense witnesses.
As if that wasn't bad enough, Mark Frank's odds of success plummeted even more when Barrett called his first witness, which was Thad Phillips.
Oh, shit. So, Phillips detailed the absolutely horrific ordeal for the court.
He said he grabbed my throat and twisted my right ankle.
I could feel it snap.
Oh, my God. He said when I looked down, my foot was on backwards.
Holy shit. He said he pushed my leg up at an angle towards my head.
He kept pushing it and pushing it until it broke.
He also told the jury early on in the ordeal he had asked Clark if he had ever done this before, and Clark responded saying, do you know Chris Steiner?
Wow. And according to Thad, Joe Clark also told him that there was an unnamed boy he had paralyzed.
What the fuck? Yep.
And the boy's testimony was so like heart -wrenching and compelling that everybody was just like silent.
I believe it. Like people were crying.
Like it was just awful.
And at one point he became too emotional and he said he can't, he was like, please, can I stop talking about this?
Of course. And they did.
Recess was granted.
Good. Now, among the last and maybe the most important witnesses to be called by the prosecution was well -known forensic psychiatrist Park Dietz.
He had actually testified in the Jeffrey Dahmer case, the Ted Kaczynski case, and Betty Broderick.
Ah. Now, according to Dietz, Joe Clark, quote, is a serial sexual sadist who takes pleasure in breaking his victim's legs.
But his antisocial personality disorder is not a legal defense to his crimes.
Dietz said Clark is faking his amnesia and falsely claiming every kind of hallucination known to man in order to avoid responsibility for his crimes.
Mm -hmm. and he said as evidence of deviant pathology he said that clark wrapped thad's legs in ace bandages and put three pairs of white gym socks on his feet before masturbating in front of him what the fuck and he said quote clark's fetish for gym socks which he took from the phillips home before abducting the boy and the fact that he masturbated in front of the injured victim him showed he was aroused by making people suffer that's so so gross yeah now the following day september 18th and that was like damning that was real damning yeah he stole gym socks from the house yeah that's on another
level yeah this whole thing is on another level it's really ick the jury deliberated for just one hour before unanimously rejecting the defense's claim that joe clark was suffering from any kind of mental incapacity no when he kidnapped and tortured thad phillips the verdict really wasn't a shock to anyone in the courtroom um an observing attorney in the courtroom that day actually said he had sympathy for mark frank the defense team in the defense team he said it was quote a dog case but somebody had to take it so basically they're all like yeah you're not winning this one right uh moments after the verdict
was read thad phillips was smiling and hugging pat barrett and he was very happy with the outcome of the trial he told old reporters at the sentencing hearing on november 14th joe clark was sentenced to a hundred years in prison for the kidnapping and assault of girl bye hey weirdos you know ash and i have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong oh yeah there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that Well, get ready for a love story that's going to blow your minds, because this one is happening right now.
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Now in October 1997, a civil court judge ruled in favor of Thad Phillips and ordered Joe Clark Clark, to pay $31 ,566 in medical damages, $6 million in compensatory damages, and $21 million in damages to the victim.
Holy shiitake mushrooms. Clark had no money at the time.
Yeah. And he's like, you know, 17.
And he's in prison.
He's unlikely to really earn anything.
So how did he get that payout?
The judge ruled that he was, that she was going to allow him to make money from the case so that he could pay this okay she said given the sensational nature of this case it is entirely possible that the defendant could reap some financial gain through media coverage in the future okay so she was like and it's going to go to them thad must have been okay with that i guess family now on to the murder trial yes we have only done that philips trial um so some of the most important parts of this was that they needed to connect joe clark to the murder in 1994 of chris steiner and clark had been among
the small number of potential suspects that had been interviewed following the discovery of steiner's body oh wow yeah and steiner's parents had strongly suspected him of involvement in the death like from the beginning so investigator gators pretty much were like okay we got our guy and their suspicions only grew when following clark's arrest the previous year a second autopsy of steiner's body had shown those injuries that that were so similar to thad and then dad's testimony that clark had just admitted to him that he killed chris steiner that was really the last piece of evidence that they
needed so less than a week after the verdict was read in the case against clark for the attack on phillips columbia county district attorney mark bennett announced that he was going to be filing criminal charges against joe clark for the murder of chris steiner in a press conference a day later He cited the testimony collected during the Phillips investigation and the subsequent trial, but saying we feel those statements are very relevant, but we do have other evidence, some included in the complaint and some not included.
okay so after the press conference ron and bertha clark joe clark's parents they spoke out against the county the columbia county district attorney's office they accused investigators of misrepresenting the facts of the case and they said quote we're talking about two kids who got in a fight the the police made up the rest of the story i don't think that that's what we're talking about i think we're talking about one kid that went home after uh killing the other and putting him in a river it's like i think we're talking about different things here your son and joe abducted and tortured somebody
and was like convicted of it like it's sitting in prison as we speak i don't know how you deny it when this kid called 9 -1 -1 from your fucking house how do you deny this that's just like they he didn't go down the street and call and be like it was at that house he was in It's in your fucking house, and you have a broken closet door to prove that he broke out of it.
It goes beyond denial.
Like, you can't. That's ridiculous.
Like, are you kidding me right now?
And now you're going to say that they're railroading him when he admitted to killing this other kid in the exact fucking same way?
Like, yeah, it sucks that your son is a murderer.
But you've got to come to terms here.
Exactly, because you're disrespecting another family by saying it has— That's the thing.
Several other families, it's like, come on.
They thought their son was being unfairly accused of murder, And they said that he's only being accused because he was seen with Chris the day he disappeared.
And it's like, no, he's being accused because he said he did it.
And Ron said that's the charges they wanted to bring in the first place.
Thad Phillips was just a way to get there.
Thad Phillips was in your home, dude.
You mean the fact that your son like absolutely abducted, tortured and tried to kill Thad Phillips in your home?
That was just a convenient way for them to get him on murder charges?
I don't understand how these people can't like— That's the thing.
I understand that it's, I can't even fathom how hard it is to come to terms or grips with your child being this fucking level of a monster.
But don't speak against, like.
But it's, like, you can't.
No. You're sounding wild right now.
And you're disrespectful.
And disrespectful saying that they were just trying to pin this on him.
Are you saying that the entire thing was set up?
Like, Thad's bones are broken because they just wanted to get a murder conviction on this random kid?
Like, I don't understand.
Like, no. So the preliminary hearing was to be held in early October, and Thad Phillips was going to be the state's main witness in the case.
Although they had other evidence, his testimony was really going to be, that was already known to the public.
It was pretty much key to prosecuting the case.
But a few days before the hearing was to begin, Thad Phillips got into an argument with another boy, which resulted in the boy shooting Thad in the shoulder.
Oh, my God. according to the shooter uh named michael thad and a friend had threatened to kill him and were entering his home without permission so he shot phillips in the back what yeah i didn't see that coming yeah nobody did apparently thad recovered by the following month and in early november joe was formally charged with three criminal counts including first degree intentional intentional homicide of chris steiner but that was like a what was that in trouble i don't think he was in trouble because he was the one that was shot but i was wondering if i don't think they had the truth i don't
think they had a lot of like evidence to the contrary but woof what a life i was just gonna say like you jesus like you are very young to be having all this stuff happen now the trial began on november 4th 1997 with kathy and george steiner being the the first of a lot of witnesses called in their testimonies both parents told the jury how they discovered their son was missing the frantic search that followed and then them finding out that chris's body was found in the river uh kathy steiner told the jury about the argument her son had had with joe clark that afternoon oh right i forgot about the significance
of which was compounded by thad phillips testimony in which he detailed the extent of his own ordeal and clark's confessioned the murder of steiner so they had everything they needed now there was a lot of overlap between the two cases obviously um in the steiner murder case kind of unfolded pretty much the same as the phillips case did a lot of the same evidence many of the same witnesses and this time however ron and bertha clark attempted to provide an alibi for joe they they told the jury joe was asleep in his bed on july 3rd 1994 the night that he was steiner was believed to have been abducted
and you're just telling us this now how convenient well and the prosecutor quickly challenged that um she confront they confronted bertha with the photographs of empty beer cans in the house that being in such disarray as well as joe's journal where he repeatedly wrote about his parents drinking and how they were always passed out they were always incapacitated and basically they said if this was indicative of a pattern we really can't trust your alibi true and it's the truth yeah and that's the the whole point of this is to you know discredit the witness of course now after several days of testimony
the jury sided with the prosecution and he was found guilty for the first degree murder of chris steiner yeah two weeks later he was brought before judge james evanson for sentencing um evanson called clark a mean sadistic killer and noticed noted that the evidence was overwhelming in proving clark's guilt despite despite his continued statements of innocence.
Before passing his sentence, Judge Evanson asked whether Joe Clark had anything to say to the court, and he said, I've done nothing wrong.
You're condemning an innocent person.
For sure. You've done nothing wrong?
Totally. Okay. Hey, look at that over there.
Yeah. He was just in your house with broken legs?
Wanted to break through your closet for funsies.
Luckily, Joe Clark was sentenced to 110 years in prison for the murder of Chris Steiner, which he had to serve concurrently with his 100 -year sentence he was already serving for the abduction and attack on Thad Phillips.
210 years. He will have to serve at least 70 years of his sentence before even being eligible for parole.
Good. Now, outside the courthouse, his parents said the sentence was basically bullshit, and they called the trial a witch hunt.
Yes, for sure. A witch hunt?
Like, you're What? It's not like he's this innocent boy that they plucked out of nowhere.
He was, there was a boy in your house.
Yeah. Calling 911 with broken legs, saying that this kid had abducted him from his house.
I can't with these people.
And apparently and they accused the authorities of conspiring against their son.
Why would they do that?
It's only a bunch of circumstantial evidence, testimony from a bunch of kids they dragged in here from jail to tell stories.
I don't know. I think it's based on a bit more than that.
All right. Doesn't change the fact that he's in jail for 270 years.
So in the fall of 1998, Joe Clark did appeal the ruling in the Phillips case.
I figured. And apparently challenging the factual basis for his convictions on the homicide, mayhem, and mental harm charges.
Excuse me? What? The petition said that Clark had been wrongfully convicted of mayhem.
This blows my mind.
Because mayhem is defined as an act committed by one who with intent to disable or disfigure another cuts or mutilates the tongue eye ear nose lip limb or other bodily member of another so joe's lawyer said well due to advances in science and medicine dad phillips didn't suffer any permanent damage oh so his client could not be guilty of mayhem as it's defined by the law oh my god i gotta ask sir how the fuck do you sleep at night like that is that's you go home and you put your fucking head on a pillow like damn i don't know about that i know just i know like defense attorneys have a hard job
i have a very hard job some of the hardest jobs and i know you got to do what you got to do but in this situation i'm like there's a line we i'd be like dude i'm that's not that's not something i'm willing to do i'm not stamping my name on you gotta give this one up like you gotta let this one go to be saying that that due to medical advances advances that didn't suffer any permanent damage like how about permanent mental damage are you kidding me joking and you're literally saying well if it was like back way back when and this happened sure he could be cause it would be mayhem but because we're
smarter now and technology has advanced we can't do that also he has like rods and shit in his legs yeah that's not permanent damage oh it just blew my leg is no longer just my leg that's damage luckily the court justices disagreed with that argument and they upheld the original finding imagine that like the the back offices when they got that they were like whoa they were like wow shoot for the stars I guess my guys how's that reach they said we do not see anything in either the historical notion of mayhem or its current placement in the statutory scheme which would require a victim's disablement
or disfigurement to be permanent it is reasonable to infer that clark knew that these injuries would would disable his victim from escaping especially in light of clark's additional threat to paralyze the victim if he tried to leave the house yeah therefore the trial court's findings of a factual basis for mayhem was clearly not erroneous now additional challenges were made to the attempted murder and mental harm to a child charges oh which i'm like you gotta stop yeah like there's where is the line and they were trying to do it the same way with the strict interpretation of the law like like
looking for a loophole.
And these arguments were very unpersuasive.
All of them were upheld, which is like, you are really going after mental harm to a child charge based on strict interpretation of that law?
I would never. Like, dude.
That I don't get. There was a second appeal that was filed in March 1999, and it argued that several pieces of evidence in the Steiner murder case, specifically Thad's testimony and the list of names discovered on those lists and the investigations they lacked merit what and the verdict should be reversed i don't think so essentially what the petition argues is that because these pieces of evidence were from a separate trial from the philips from a separate trial they should not have been allowed to be used in the murder trial and the justices were like no but like these two events correlate they said
the trial court properly exercised its discretion in determining that the evidence was relevant for purposes of motive, plan, intent, and identity, and in determining that its probative value was not outweighed by unfair prejudice.
After reviewing all the evidence, the ruling was upheld.
Yeah. So Joe Clark is going to be in jail forever and ever and ever.
Forever and always.
I... And then there's just, like, no info on if he paralyzed a boy.
That one... Just went away.
Because I looked everywhere for that.
They could not find what that was about.
So maybe he was just shit -talking.
so he could have just been shit talking or he did it to someone who was in you know a bad position and wouldn't be able to come forward damn wow that was something that was a really intense case very upsetting I feel so bad for in a lot of ways Chris Steiner's family and Thad and now Chris Steiner's family now knows what he went through before he died that's even worse absolutely like they have have that I won't it's closure is such a weird word we always say but they have that closure of knowing what happened now instead of just wondering what happened but my god at what cost like that I know
knowing that that's what happened I don't know I wonder how they feel about knowing I hope they're okay I hope they are too I hope that's okay I know I hope that's doing great honestly wow that was a lot I hope Joe Clark's parents got it together at some point I honestly They were able to accept the truth.
What had happened. Yeah.
And move forward. And stop denying it.
Hopefully healthily.
Yeah. Like hopefully you got it together.
Yeah. You know but oof.
That's a sad story all around.
It's an awful awful awful case.
And where was that again?
Wisconsin. That's crazy.
You guys are just supposed to be known for cheese I think.
I know. What are you doing?
Calm down. Calm down over there.
Well. Thanks for listening.
Yeah. And we hope you keep it weird. but not so weird that you forget to say weird at the end of your own show and I don't think you should ever keep it as weird as Joe Clark did cause or else you'll be in prison for 200 and forever years yeah don't keep it that weird at all love you so much bye If you like Morbid, you can listen early and ad -free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
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