The Waterbed

Maddie Clifton was eight years old and lived in the Lakewood neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida. On the afternoon of November 3, 1998, she went out to play and never came home. Her disappearance set off one of the largest searches the city had seen, with more than a thousand volunteers, a $100,000 reward, and days of national coverage. Police searched the surrounding houses, including the one across the street.

Among the neighbors handing out flyers was Joshua Phillips, who was fourteen. Maddie had been playing ball with him that afternoon. He later said he hit her with a baseball, panicked because he was afraid of what his father would do, and then beat and stabbed her. He hid her body under the waterbed in his own bedroom and left it there for a week while the search went on around him.

On November 10, his mother, Melissa Phillips, tracked a worsening smell to a wet patch beside the waterbed, lifted the mattress, and found Maddie. Josh was arrested at school and confessed within hours. Tried as an adult, he was convicted of first-degree murder in July 1999 and sentenced to life without parole. After the United States Supreme Court restricted such sentences for juveniles, he was resentenced in 2017 to life with a review after twenty-five years.