← Nightmares
Nightmares
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00:28:57
Thirteen-year-old Thad Phillips fell asleep on his couch—and woke up in a nightmare. Trapped in a decaying house with a smiling teen and sinister intentions, he would spend two harrowing days fighting to survive when all hope seemed lost.
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- [00:00]
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play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. It's the summer of 1995 and 13 year old Thad Phillips is finally starting to feel like Baraboo, Wisconsin might be home. His family has just moved here. It's a new town, a new school and new classmates sizing him up at the baseball field. Dad's the kind of kid people remember. Tall for his age, smart, loud in a confident, cocky way. He's good at baseball and he likes to talk a little trash. He's relatable and most people like him. After a long day of hanging out with friends outside, he often pulls himself through the front door and falls asleep wherever he lands. Tonight, that's on the living room couch. The TV is still flickering. His little sister is curled up nearby. His parents are down the hall, comfortable in their new routine. They think their kids are safe under the same roof. Thad is out cold. He doesn't hear the quiet scrape of a shoe across the floor. He doesn't hear the stranger walking into his house. Welcome to Sword and Scale Nightmares. True crime for bedtime. Where nightmare begins now.
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- [02:42]
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Spinquest is a free to play social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. Baraboo sounds like some sunburnt town in coastal Australia, but it's actually plunked right along the Dairy Belt in Midwestern America. Oddly enough, the city used to be home base for the Ringling Brothers. They launched their first official circus performance in 1884 and lived in Baraboo each winter until 1918. As a result, the town is dubbed Circus City. But the Phillips family didn't move to Baraboo because of some fascination with the circus. They lived in busier, more heavily populated places, and and they were just happy to settle somewhere small and safe. Baraboo is so safe, they think they can leave their front doors unlocked. And on this particular July evening, that's exactly what they do. After getting back from a family dinner at a local restaurant, Thad and his little sister head to the living room to watch tv. Thad stretches out on the couch and dozes off almost immediately. As the night continues, everyone trickles off to their bedrooms, leaving Thad sprawled out in front of the television. Sometime after midnight, something changes. The couch dips, an arm slides under his shoulders, another under his knees, and his body lifts. Half asleep, he doesn't even open his eyes. His brain picks the simplest explanation. Dad's carrying me to bed, he thinks. Then the air gets cooler. He hears crickets. He feels the night on his skin. He hears gravel crunching under feet. He snaps awake enough to realize he isn't in the hall, headed towards his bedroom. He's being carried outside. Something is very wrong. Thad's brain is desperately trying to make his body move. He looks up. The face above him isn't his father. It's a kid, only a few years older than Thad himself. He's thin and acne scarred. A stranger. The teenager sets Thad down on his feet and starts talking to him. He's talking fast, like this is no big deal. His name is Joe. His car broke down. He says he needs a hand. He didn't want to wake Thad's parents. Thad is barefoot, disoriented, and this older kid mentions a few names that he recognizes. They're boys from school, kids from around town. He's new, but he's made a few friends already. This feels plausible to Thad. Maybe this kid is a friend of a friend. So when Joe walks, dad goes with him. They creep through a quiet neighborhood with dim porch lights and dark windows. This is a small town and no one but these two are awake. After a few blocks, the houses thin out. Joe leads them to a place that looks suspicious all the way from the sidewalk. It's a sagging house with paint flaking off the siding and a front yard overgrown with weeds. He says he lives here. Inside. The smell hits Thad like a brick wall. It's rotting food, sweat, and something sour underneath it. All the floor is littered with trash, clothes, fast food containers, and cans kicked into corners. Joe shrugs off the mess and explains he's getting ready for a party. He says other boys that Thad knows will be Coming. Then Joe invites Thad upstairs to check out some of his model cars. Still confused, Thad agrees. Joe is acting so oddly casual. To Thad, this feels like a fever dream. Joe's bedroom is worse than the first floor. The bed is filthy. There's junk everywhere. The air feels heavy and stale. This is where Joe finally shares his full name. Joe Clark. He's 17 years old. He likes baseball, cars, model airplanes and cars. He's talking to Thad like he's one of his friends. He brings up school, local gossip. He's good at appearing somewhat normal to a half asleep Thad. That's when Joe changes the subject. He starts talking about hurting people. He tells Thad that he's killed before. Boys. More than one. He says it almost like a dare, watching to see how Thad reacts. It feels like the room is suddenly dropped in temperature. Before Thad can decide whether he believes any of it, Joe moves. The friendliness strains out of his face. He grabs Thad and throws him back onto the dirty mattress and clamps both hands around his right ankle. At first it feels like roughhousing taken too far. Then Joe starts to twist. The angle goes from uncomfortable to unnatural. Thad yells at him to stop, but Joe doesn't. There's a moment where everything in the joint is pulled to its absolute limit. There's intense heat and pressure and a sense that something is about to go very, very wrong. Then it does. A sharp pop cuts through the room. Pain detonates in his leg, shooting up through his body so violently his vision starts to flicker. It's a total body takeover. His scream barely sounds human. Somewhere in the noise, Joe is listening. He likes the sound. That's last clear memory before he passes out is Joe leaning over him, talking about the way bones feel when they finally snap.
- [09:32]
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- [11:11]
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On a July night in 1995, 13 year old Thad Phillips falls asleep on his family's couch and wakes up in the arms of a stranger. 17 year old Joe Clark carries him out of his own house, walks him to a filthy, reeking home down the road, and lures him upstairs. In a dank bedroom, the mask finally slips. Joe tells Thad he's killed before and that he likes the sound of bones breaking. Then he twists Thad's ankle until it snaps. When he wakes up after blacking out, the pain is still there. His ankle feels loose and wrong, like it's held together with wet rope instead of bone. Even the smallest attempt at movement sends a shock up his leg. Joe is in the room and he's back to acting casual. He speaks in that easy, friendly tone again, trying to make small talk. He walks around the mess on the floor like the boy lying there with a broken ankle is a minor inconvenience. Thad begs to call his parents. They'll be worried about him by now. He won't tell them what happened, he says. He just wants to let them know he's okay. Joe thinks about it and surprisingly, he agrees. He sets up a phone, barely within reach. Hope is sharp. It cuts through Thad's pain. He drags himself across the floor, every inch a deliberate tearing movement. He grabs the receiver and starts to dial. That's when he sees the cord. It's cut clean through, hanging loosely from the wall. The phone in his hand is nothing but plastic. When he looks up, Joe is watching his face. He doesn't look confused and he doesn't look sorry. He looks satisfied. That's the moment Thad understands nothing in this house is an accident. The rest of the night is a blur of pain. Pain and calculation. Joe's mood swings from friendly to sadistic. He crouches beside Thad and talks like a friend, then pivots into threats and twisted jokes about breaking bones. He wraps socks and bandages around Thad's ruined ankle, not to heal it, but to immobilize it at a warped angle, keeping the damage right where he wants it. What's happened so far is confusing, Thad thinks, But what happens next is unfathomable. Joe unzips his pants and begins to masturbate over Thad's primitively bandaged limbs. Joe seems to be getting sadistic sexual pleasure from the torture he's inflicting. This is beyond weird. Thad is terrified. Lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, he starts to build the only plan he can. Morning comes and Joe leaves the room. For a moment, Thad seizes the opportunity. He pulls himself upright, balances on his good leg and limps as quickly as he can, planning to escape from the bedroom, then the house. Every step down the hallway and onto the stairs feels like his lower leg is grinding itself into splinters. He blinks away tears and pushes through the pain. He doesn't make it far. Joe catches him on the first floor, puts him in a chokehold and drags him back up to the filthy bedroom. The friendliness is gone once again. This time, Joe, he goes for Thad's hip. He grabs Thad's leg and wrenches it up towards his head. He forces all of his weight down on the boy, leaning on his overextended leg, until both his femur and hip bone snap. The pain is much worse than the first break. It's blinding, searing. The sound is heavier than the ankle. At this point, Thad's legs are a collection of fractures and dislocations. Ankles, hips, knees, long bones. He can't stand. He can barely move. Thad passes out again. At this point, the pattern is set. Between each brutal attack, Joe pretends to feel bad. He makes false attempts to take care of Thad, bandaging up his broken bones with thick socks and rags. At one point, he even forces Thad into leg braces, allowing him to hobble around a bit. This only gives Thad a false sense of hope that he'll be able to escape. So, using what little help the leg braces provide, he keeps trying. With each failed attempt, Joe punishes him by breaking more bones. It's a confusing cycle. Sometimes, when his car won't start, or when Joe faces another mundane inconvenience, he takes his rage out on Thad. He twists and stomps on his legs, fracturing nearly every intact bone he has left. He jumps on Thad's chest and at one point even puts a pillow over Thad's face as he masturbates. Thad goes so long without oxygen he thinks he's going to die. Other times the torture sessions are because Thad has tried to escape. But no matter the cause, after each beating, Joe's mood shifts back to friendly again. One time he even carried Thad to the couch to watch TV together, like they were just two friends hanging out. Joe talks about his family, his car, and how he lives in this house with his brother and his brother's girlfriend, both of whom make their way in and out of the house while Thad is being held captive upstairs. The next day, Joe mentions his own girlfriend. How this kid managed to land a girlfriend is beyond Thad, but that doesn't matter. Joe is leaving to go get her. He leaves Thad alone in the room. Thad decides this is his next shot. He's not ready to give up just yet. He drags himself out of the bedroom and down the stairs using only his upper body. Every bump sends fractured bone ends grinding together. He makes it to the kitchen, crawling on the floor. He hears the front door open. Joe is already back with his girlfriend. Thad can see them walking over to sit on the couch. The phone is close by and the route is open. But any clumsy movement towards it risks making a sound on the dirty linoleum. Thad's broken body isn't reliably quiet. If Joe looks up and sees him on the floor, it's over. Again he lies flat in the kitchen, heart pounding, and waits. Eventually the girlfriend leaves and Joe makes his way to the kitchen, finding Thad in his open hiding spot. He's shocked at first, but that shock quickly turns to rage. Joe drags him back upstairs and for the first time in no uncertain terms, Joe threatens to kill Thad if he tries to escape again. Thad's hope is dwindling. He knows he's going to die here. Joe needs to leave the house again, but he's not going to leave Thad free range in the bedroom anymore. From now on, he'll lock Thad in the closet. There is only darkness, dust and the smell of old wood and sweat. Thad listens. Footsteps down the hall, the creak of stairs. The front door. Now it's quiet. He feels around in the dark and his hand closes on something solid. A beat up electric guitar. As soon as he's sure Joe is out of earshot, he braces as best he can with what's left of his legs, grips the guitar by the neck and starts swinging it into the door. Every impact throws pain up his arms and back into his broken bones, but the wood splinters and the closet door busts open. He drags himself towards the stairs. Going down them like a normal person will be impossible. His legs won't hold any weight. So Thad does the only thing that gives him a chance. He throws himself. His body bounces down each step. His shoulder, hip, head, broken legs slam in into the wood at the bottom of the staircase. He lies in a crumpled heap. Somehow he's still conscious. He slides into the kitchen, pulling himself with his hands, dragging two limp legs behind him, and he sees a phone on the counter. He can't stand, so he reaches up, grabs the cord and yanks the phone down to the floor. His fingers barely work. He forces them to he does not know how much time he has. He stabs the buttons clumsily, punching nine one. One foreign.
- [21:41]
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- [23:52]
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For nearly two days, Thad Phillips has been held captive and tortured in ways none of us can even imagine enduring. Now Thad has smashed his way out of a locked closet with a guitar, thrown himself down a flight of stairs and dragged his broken body across the kitchen floor just to reach a phone. Out of breath, he tells the dispatcher that his name is Thaddeus Phillips. He's badly hurt. Both of his legs are broken. And he's trapped in the house of a boy named Joe. It's a small town and the house isn't far from that baraboo. Police race to the address. When they push the door open, they see him on the kitchen floor, legs twisted into impossible angles. One of them blurts out, oh, he's still alive. He is. But he's also two hours away from bleeding to death internally. They call an ambulance. And somewhere else in town, Joe Clark's time as a free man quietly runs out. At the hospital, the horror of what Joe Clark had done to Thad is on display for a room full of doctors. They find fractures and dislocations stacked on top of each other. His ankles were apparently twisted until the bones above them snapped. His hips were torn from their sockets, a femur broken, knees damaged, soft tissue shredded. He goes into surgery. Then another. And another. Somehow, miraculously, obviously, he survives. While he's healing, detectives talk to him. He tells them Joe didn't just torture him. He bragged about times he'd done it before. He said he'd killed two boys before kidnapping Thad. He could remember one. Chris. Investigators pull old files. They land on a case from the year before. Christian Chris Steiner, a 14 year old boy who went missing from his baraboo home on July 4, 1994. His parents woke up to find his bed empty, his window screen cut, muddy footprints in the house. Five days later, his body was found in the Wisconsin river, hanging over a submerged tree branch. His cause of death was marked as drowning. The manner of death was officially undetermined, but was treated like a tragic accident. After Thad's statement, that accident doesn't look so accidental. They exhumed Chris Steiner's body. A new autopsy revealed that both legs and ankles had been broken in ways eerily similar to Thad's injuries. This kid had dislocations and fractures that would have made him unable to swim before he drowned. Back at Joe Clark's house, police search for more evidence. They don't find another body, but they do find a notebook. In it are the names of around 29 local boys, some of whom Thad recognizes. The names are sorted into columns. One says can wait. Another column says get to now. And the last one says the leg thing. This was a to do list. And a forensic psychiatrist later testified that Joe had a sexual fetish for breaking bones and also for men's white socks. The leg thing was shorthand for that particular, particular sexualized violence, the repeated breaking and wrapping of the legs. For his crimes against Thad, Joe is charged as an adult with attempted first degree intentional homicide, child enticement causing great bodily harm to a child, mayhem and mental harm to a child. After a long, long road to recovery, Thad eventually learns to walk again. There will always be a limp, lingering nerve pain, the kind of deep weather sensitive ache that never really goes away. He still takes the stand. He tells the jury about being carried out of his house, about the filthy bedroom, about the cut phone cord, about having his ankle twisted until it broke, about the hip and the femur. And the way Joe's voice lit up when he talked about loving the sound of bones splintering. And he told them about Joe's calm claim that he'd killed before. The jury finds Joe Clark guilty, he gets a 100 year prison sentence for what he did to Thad. For Chris Steiner, he faces first degree murder. He pleads not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. His lawyers point to fetal alcohol syndrome, possibly brain damage. Anything that might make a jury sympathetic or understanding, really. The state sees something else. A clear method, a timeline. Plans for the future, an overall pattern of escalating violence. They're confident Joe is a serial killer in the making. But before the trial can begin, something happens that almost silences the only living witness to Joe Clark's sadistic methods. Joe's 15 year old neighbor and friend Michael Huebschows up at Thad's house with a hunting rifle. Michael is angry about his friend Joe being in jail and he doesn't want Thad to testify against him. This kid wasn't thinking clearly. It wasn't like this second Trial would make a difference in Joe's freedom. Regardless. He sees Thad in the yard. He lifts his rifle and shoots him in the back and then shoots him again. But this is nothing compared to what Thad's already been through. He's already survived a torture session by a kid who's now known by the media as the bone breaker. These two bullets weren't going to take him out. After another grueling recovery, Thad survives yet again and is able to take the stand in a second trial. With Thad's testimony, Joe Clark gets life plus 50 years between those two cases. He will never walk free. On paper, it's decisive. But nothing will give Thad his body back and nothing will bring Chris Steiner back. In the hope of getting some financial help from the person who caused the growing stack of medical bills on the kitchen table, Thad's family sues Joe Clark and wins a civil judgment. He's promised 21 million for all his pain, suffering and expenses. But Joe Clark never had money, never will. And the judgment just sits there as an unpaid number in a file. Thad says he's never seen a cent of it and probably never will. Decades later, a Baraboo woman named Olga Johnson has started a GoFundMe called Support Thad Phillips, real hero of Baraboo. The description talks about his surgeries, his limp, the fact that his case solved a murder and likely stopped many more. So far, the fundraiser has gathered 25,000 in donations. But that amount only scratches the surface and it doesn't change what happened back in 1995 in the filthy bedroom on a quiet street when a 13 year old boy trusted an older kid who simply knew his classmates names. Thad's nightmare was 43 hours long. Chris Steiner's ended in a river. The only reason we know Joe Clark as though the Baraboo bone breaker, the only reason he's behind bars today is because one of his victims refused to die. And saving himself, Thaddeus Phillips stopped a serial killer. If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining plus@swardandscale.com but if you can't, consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred listening platform. Sweet dreams and good night.
- [33:27]
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