Maddie Clifton

Related

• Joshua Phillips — subject

  Josh Phillips

  Existing editorial statement (not a retrieved source quotation): Retained source-linked editorial statement (not a verbatim publisher quotation). Named victim explicitly described in this case; see exact evidence and original attribution.

  Victim evidence source

  “Existing editorial statement (not a retrieved source quotation): Josh Phillips murdered his eight-year-old neighbor, Maddie Clifton, when he was 14. He beat her with a baseball bat, cut her throat and stabbed her, then hid her body inside his waterbed frame and participated in the search for her. The killing occurred on November 3, 1998, in Jacksonville, Florida. A jury convicted him of first-degree murder in 1999. His life sentence now permits judicial review; he withdrew his most recently reported review application on May 6, 2026.”