EP21: The Bonebreaker
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Get your quote today at Progressive.com to join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. All right. Welcome back to another episode of the Psychopedia podcast. I am your co-host, Tank Sinatra, here with my co-host. Investigators later. We have a special guest in the studio today. Cash's gastrointestinal tract is making an appearance. Okay.

Thankfully, we only hear it and we do not smell it. Yeah. So if you hear some rumblings and tumblings, that's just Cash's tummy going ape shit over there. I saw him eating something up here. What did he eat? I don't know. What do you have on your floor? Oh, I did see him eat something. I know. First of all, he's not like the type of dog that grabs shit off the sidewalk, typically like our other pit bull, but he definitely got his mouth around something right before we started recording. So I don't think... You'll find out what it is in about four to six hours. I'm agreeing with you. Ew.

It's probably a cord of some sort. Wonderful. Yeah. So welcome back to the podcast. As always, rate, review, subscribe, follow, share, love, email, DM, stalk. I mean...

How else should these people be getting in contact with us? Think of some things that maybe like a psychopathic serial killer stalker might do. Yeah, look through our windows. I mean, follow us for three to four turns so that we notice. Just like we want you people to be into it.

So if you're not following us, I have to believe that maybe you're just not as big of a fan as you say you are. We question your loyalty. Yeah. So start seeing us in real life. No, don't do that. You can do that with me because I'm huge, but with Investigators Slater, leave her alone because she's very frail. Thanks, Tank. I'm not frail. Motherfucker. I'm just small. But she does carry weapons. We have a pretty big announcement to make right now. You're pregnant? Yeah. Yes. I knew it. With twins. Oh.

Muzzle Tove. Yeah, Muzzle Twins. No, we're launching a different, you know, version of the podcast, which we announced last week, but we're announcing it again. We're going to keep announcing it because we have to. We're doing a Patreon, and that is because we have more to say. Like, I censor myself, not with what I'm saying, but how long I say it, and I have to be very picky and choosy with my words on this podcast.

And I just want to talk more. And I think you are also going to approach things from a different angle. You can speak to that if you want right now. I will take that opportunity. Yeah. So when I prep these cases, there's...

And every word is written.

we want to say in as many ways as we want to say it. The working title right now is Psychopedia Unhinged. Yeah, I love it. Because we're about to just take the hinges off. Right. And we're also a little unhinged. And if you think we've been unhinged, you have no idea. Buckle up. Yeah. I mean, punched her in the tits was nothing compared

Compared to what you're going to get. So it's going to be patreon.com slash psychopedia pod. We'll have a couple of different levels, all cute names. One of the levels will be for sure. Semen demon. We're not sure which one, but if you want to be a semen demon, go over to patreon.com slash psychopedia pod and sign up to get more of

what you know you want. Yeah. Right? Like, let's not kid ourselves. You love us and we love you. I was going to say, it's totally mutual. We want to hang out with you guys more. Yeah. You know, as we get in there and build it out, we'll maybe have some goals and fly people out to the studio to record with us. I don't know. We could get nuts. I love that idea. Why wouldn't we do that? We can and we will. And we're doing guests like we had Mark Norman on last week. Like, you know, we're trying to build this thing and we, uh,

We're only building it because you're all coming. If you build it, they will come. Exactly. Arnold Schwarzenegger style. We hear you. We hear you when you say you woke up on a Tuesday and you were pissed because it wasn't Wednesday. Yeah, we love it. We love hearing that. We feel the same way, by the way. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like a holiday when this episode drops for me every week. And I get very excited Tuesday night that tomorrow I'm going to wake up and there's going to be a new episode because I listen to them too. So do I. We love ourselves. We're a little egocentric. I love hearing what our listeners are hearing. And then I try and like,

here's something that maybe I don't love and then fix it for the next time. Yeah. I mean, she hardest, hardest worker in the room. That's not saying much. I got a dog on the floor. And me. And you. She's like the rock of true crime. Yeah. Hardest worker in the room. Okay, Dwayne. Sure. Maybe. So without further ado, Z, that was for you. I love it. We're going to get into this case as always.

I have no fucking clue what's about to happen. And you, the listener, are going to hear it for the first time, as am I. And I hope my reactions mirror your reactions. That means we're buddies. So without further ado, Z!

Let's hear this nightmare. Some of our listeners requested this case, which is funny because I already had it on my list. But the fact that people requested this one, like, wow, dude, you guys are nuts for wanting to hear this one. I love it. We got some crazy listeners. You know what they want probably is they want to hear your take on it. I hope so. I hope I can bring something different from what they may have already heard.

On July 14th, 1995, a 13-year-old boy named Thaddeus Phillips moved into a brand new home with his family in a place called Baraboo, Wisconsin. Baraboo? Baraboo is a city with a total population of about 12,000 and is known as Circus City.

as that is where the Ringling Brothers Circus established itself back in 1884. Baraboo, Wisconsin. Yeah. Okay. And that little piece of history is completely irrelevant to the case, but interesting. I think it's interesting. Ringling, Barnum and Bailey Brothers Circus. Yeah. Also, I can't say Ringling. Ring...

That's another one of those words. The worst name. Ringling Barnum and Brothers in Belly. Right. Well, they were established in Baraboo in 1884. Another B word. With his tan complexion, dirty blonde hair, and love for playing baseball, Thad Phillips was the quintessential image of a young, outdoorsy, Midwestern kid. You gave him a nickname already, huh?

I did? Yeah. What? Oh, sad? He introduced me as Thaddeus and now he's Thad. Oh, yeah. I mean, we're kind of homeboys. I know all about him by this point. TP. He reminds me of a character in The Sandlot. Okay. Right? That best movie ever. Yeah. One of them.

So just two weeks after Thad and his family moved into their new home in Circus City, Thad and his five-year-old sister stayed up late to watch a movie together in the living room. Eventually, Thad fell asleep on the couch, which is something that happened a lot when he'd insist on staying up late to watch a movie. Shortly after conking out, Thad experienced the familiar sensation of his dad, Donald, lifting him from the couch and carrying him into his bedroom, a routine occurrence that happened constantly.

countless times before. Nestled against the familiar and comforting embrace of his dad, Thad drifted back into slumber while being transferred into the next room. However, on this particular occasion, something felt off. Instead of being taken to his bedroom as usual, Thad found himself being carried outside into the abyss of the pitch black night. Why are we going outside? Thad wondered, to an extent, since he was still half asleep. And five. No, he's 13.

What? His sister. I mentioned he was watching a movie with his sister. His sister's five. Thad is 13. And his dad is carrying him into his bed? Yeah, he was sleeping. That's weird. It's not weird. Not to digress too much, but if you're on the other side of this microphone right now and I'm in your ears and you think it's weird, you're right.

She's wrong. I'm right. You're right. 13. My son is 10. I don't even carry him into his bed. Wow. Shame on you. I'm fucking jacked.

He shifted his confused gaze upward, locking his groggy eyes into the silhouette above him, only to be struck with a profound sense of shock and panic. It was Shrek? It was not Shrek. Because even among the pitch black velvet landscape illuminated only by the faint glow of the moon, Thad could see that the person holding him was not his father. Oh, that's scary. Oh no, he got kidnapped? Yeah.

From his home? Yup. Oh, that's fucking terrifying. Thad had no way of knowing that the individual carrying him out of his house had been watching him for the full two weeks that he'd been living in his new home. It's not entirely clear how this perpetrator entered the home, but I watched and interviewed in which Thad's dad indicated that he'd always shut the light and lock the door the night before, like when they'd go to sleep. And when he woke up the next morning, the light was still on, which indicated

indicates that he likely also left the door unlocked that night. Yeah. And then this fucking predator just walked right in. Wow. And while Thad was now stunned into visceral shock and a primal sense of impending doom, he truly had no idea just how absolutely horrific the next 43 hours of his life were going to be.

because the person carrying him away from the safety and comfort of his home and family was none other than 17-year-old Joe Clark, more famously known as the Bone Breaker. Oh, that's a really...

gruesome moniker they have. Yeah. It's well earned. The Bonebreaker? Yep. 17? Yeah. Which makes it somehow just more horrific, right? Yeah. So, obviously, we're going to go on to hear why he received that name, but...

He's one of the most ruthless people we've heard yet on this podcast. There was a kid in Comac. His name was Bryce Sullivan. For people who are, if you're from Comac and you know who that is, like high five through the internet, but nobody knows who he is. To me, he's the bone breaker. He was like the worst person I've ever heard of in any neighborhood. Right.

Was he older than you? Yeah, he was like three or four years older than me. Okay, so I definitely wouldn't know him then. He was just a nightmare human being. Very, obviously, I don't know anything about his family, but I'm assuming he had it rough growing up. Yeah, yeah. Did he go to our school? He went to Comac High School, but he was just like, he set my friend Jimmy's house on fire. Oh. Like, didn't even deny it. Yeah, where is this kid now? Dead. Oh.

Oh, shit. He died at 17. Oh, my God. Yeah, motorcycle accident. He was one of those people who was from like 11 or 12 on, just like, stay away from that kid. He's a fucking nightmare. There are a lot of similarities, and we're going to go on to hear why in the way you're describing this kid, Bryce, with how I'm going to go on to describe the bone breaker. I still don't like people named Bryce. If I meet somebody named Bryce, I'm like, nice to know you. Gives you the creeps. Yeah.

So after stealthily abducting Thad from his own home as his parents literally slept in the next room, Joe Clark placed a barefoot Thad down on the gravel and instructed him to run with him the rest of the way towards his house, which was located about half a mile down the road.

And for some reason, this bizarre request made Thad think that maybe his dad was in some kind of trouble in the neighborhood and needed his help. I could see that. Yeah. Because the kid who just carried him off the couch didn't seem necessarily mean or dangerous. He just seemed like he really needed Thad to hurry up and go with him. Plus, you're like half asleep. He's half asleep. And he also thought that maybe his brother was friends with this kid, Joe Clark. Yeah. So he interpreted the situation at that moment as weird, but not dangerous. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Joe guided Thad upstairs into a bedroom where he presented him with some model cars and a really cool collection of baseball cards, instantly connecting with Thad. And he also started talking about kids that Thad knew around the neighborhood. So, of course, by doing this, he was cleverly establishing a false sense of camaraderie and trust, painting the illusion of shared interests and mutual friends. And this is all in the middle of the night he's doing this. Yep. Yeah. Putting myself into the mind of Thad. Mm-hmm.

I can 100% imagine that he's just like, this is fucking weird, but okay. Like, uh, where, what are we doing here? Yeah. Probably he's trying to figure it out. Scared to ask.

Does the kid have a reputation in the neighborhood, the Bonebreaker? Well, yes, but mind you, Thad moved into that neighborhood just two weeks prior. Oh my God, imagine Bryce Sullivan came into my house when I was 13 and I just moved there. I didn't know who he was. You'd be screwed. Oh my God, that's so scary. So what Joe Clark was skillfully doing was disarming his now captive...

knowing that if he could put Thad at ease, the next part of his plan would go a lot smoother. I don't even want to know what the next part of his plan was. And even though the entire situation was undeniably weird as fuck for Thad, Joe was an extremely proficient manipulator and kept his finger on the pulse of the situation, knowing exactly what to say and how to successfully coax Thad into placing his trust in him during those initial moments.

I just...

I just want it on record that when we launch merch, obviously we're going to have some kind of hidden semen demon on a shirt somewhere. But also I think Undeniably Weird as Fuck is a great shirt. Just to put it into the record books. Love it. So I don't forget it because I will 100% forget it. Well, good thing you listen to these episodes after they come out because it will remind you.

Yes. So I'd like to issue a trigger warning at this point because it gets very, very graphic. And we are talking about a child here. So please listen with caution. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to linkedin.com slash results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be.

As Thad continued to innocently examine the baseball cards scattered, Joe suddenly dropped his friendly facade and instantly lost any semblance of warmth and kindness from his face. He put the baseball cards down, rose to his feet, intentionally standing above Thad to place himself in a position of dominance and control. Then, without warning or cause, Joe forcefully threw Thad's 90-pound body down on the filthy mattress and

and pounced. First, Joe began to jump up and down on Thad's much smaller body. He was at least twice as big as Thad. Then, Joe grabbed hold of Thad's left foot and began to twist it until it snapped and splintered.

He wrapped his left foot around his leg so that it was facing backwards. You're doing a great job describing this, and I fucking hate it. Yeah, I'm sorry. It's okay.

Thad could feel the now broken bones in his ankle drifting up his leg where they then proceeded to rub against the other bones. Can you imagine feeling your bones migrating inside your body? Well, what he did is something called a radial fracture. Do you know what that is? No. So sometimes a bone is broken at a point and it cracks. A radial fracture is when it like...

the worst possible way to describe it I possibly can. The bagels that come prepackaged, when you twist them and they separate, it's like the bone gets twisted so hard that it breaks and it sends waves up each side of the broken bone. So it splinters. It doesn't crack like you would crack a pretzel rod. Right. It explodes. This distinction.

is something we're going to come back to later in the case. God, you have the best fucking input tank. Like you really know, I know I say this a lot, you know so much about so much. I know a little about a lot. Okay. Well, it comes across as knowing a lot about a lot. I know a lot of shit. I know a lot of shit. That's the first useful thing I've said this entire podcast. No, that was just, you killed it. And it's actually very relevant. So like put it on ice. Great. No pun intended. Oh,

Yes. Ice that bone.

Thad knew that he was in mortal danger. Oh, yeah. Right after Thad's ankle snapped and shifted, so too did Joe's disposition. Suddenly, Joe dropped his face in his hands and began to frantically mumble to himself. Gone was the dominant psychopath, and in his place stood an almost vulnerable-looking teenage boy. The other one just switched back? The perpetrator. Switched back to vulnerable? Yeah. So remember...

He lures Thad into his home. He's Mr. Nice Guy. He's Joey from the block. Then in a second, he becomes this predator. He's Bonebreaker. He's Bonebreaker, correct. And then in the next instant moment, he's got his hands on his face and he's freaking out.

Wow, this kid is... He's got rapid shifts in demeanor. Yeah. Seeing, though, that this was a potential opportunity to escape, right, because Joe now has his face in his hands, and drawing on a surge of adrenaline in that very moment, Thad mustered the strength to free himself from the situation despite the excruciating pain surging from his newly fractured ankle, and he made a run for it, figuratively.

With an extremely hobbled gait, understandably, Thad limped out of the bedroom and began to navigate his way downstairs.

Joe swiftly pursued him, seized him in a chokehold, and violently tossed Thad's already wounded body onto the grimy couch. So now they're downstairs. Then, with brutal force, Joe forcefully elevated Thad's right leg towards his head, exerting an immense, almost superhuman amount of pressure on the extended leg that caused Thad's femur bone to snap in half. What is this kid? What the fuck?

So the femur is the longest and strongest bone in the human body. And it requires, to be exact, 899 pounds of force to break. Per square inch. So the combination of the immense amount of force that Joe was applying with the angle, with Thad's age, caused this otherwise exceptionally resilient bone to snap. He broke his femur? Yeah. Yeah.

On his right leg and his left ankle. His whole foot was facing the other way. His left ankle was twisted. The femur bone, for anybody who's not familiar with how hard it is to break a femur bone, I think they say, please don't come for me. I'm just talking, okay? I want to just appeal to the people who are listening. The only thing that's comparable to birth pain

Is a broken femur. I'm coming at you right now. Because it's not. It can't be. You can't imagine how hard it must be. Give me a break. Well, when it's happening for 36 hours straight, my friend. Stop complaining.

Please. Now I'm getting... Yeah, come for me now. Ladies with babies, help me out here. You know what? I was just trying to draw a line. No, I get it. I get it. You're trying to... I understand. You're trying to suggest that it's excruciating. It's the only thing that's even comparable. Okay. But that also is the largest, strongest bone in the body. The thickest bone, the femur.

So with a now fractured femur and completely shattered ankle, Joe callously proceeded to subject Thad's already devastated limbs to further torment by jumping up and down on the broken bones. What a dick. The extent of suffering endured by Thad is beyond comprehension.

And Thad, by this point, was understandably going into shock, and he was bracing for impact as the blows continued to land on his fractured body. But then, suddenly, something else happened. Pop quiz. Oh, shit. What happened next? A. Thad's dad busted through the front door holding a Remington 12-gauge shotgun. B. Joe started to sing the breakout hit, This Is How We Do It, by Montel Jordan. Mm-hmm.

C. Joe suddenly stopped jumping on sad and started engaging in light conversation about his girlfriend and his fascination with bones. He started engaging in light conversation. Yes. Very good. You know how I knew that? No. I'm just going to give the secret away to help you. Hmm. Do you not want me to? I don't know. I get very sensitive over these pop quizzes. I didn't do good.

You did fine. Oh, okay. So tell me. But as hard as you're trying to get me, I'm trying as hard to not get got. It's okay. I want to improve. So tell me. Okay. So the first thing was that you told me that Thad was in there for 43 hours. So I knew his dad didn't- Rookie mistake. Oh.

The second thing is that I pictured you Googling what were the popular songs in 1995. Looking exactly what I did. Maybe co-hosting a podcast with your really close friend isn't the best idea when you're trying to trip them up. So yeah, got his ass. Do better, try harder. All right, let's move on. This is how we do it.

So it was really as if someone flipped a switch with Joe Clark. Literally moments after cracking Thad's bones and jumping on the carnage, Joe situated Thad's battered body on the living room couch and started to shoot the shit with him as if they were just ordinary friends hanging out. Meanwhile, the pain was so intense for poor Thad that his entire body started to tremble as he was going into shock.

And Joe's ability to seamlessly oscillate between the friendly Joey from the block, as I said before, persona, and a cold-hearted literal bone breaker is a classic sign of psychopathy. And we've seen this before, most recently with the Jerry Brudos shoe fetish slayer case, right? With Jerry Brudos, he would go upstairs, eat burgers with his children and mother, and 30 seconds later after going into his basement, literally fuck a corpse.

Just a regular Friday. But that ability to flip-flop like that is classic psychopathy. Yeah. And it was really as if Joe's brain had a switch that enabled him to present different facets of his personality at any given moment, depending on what he wanted that person to see in that moment.

So when Joe wasn't brutalizing Thad, he wanted Thad to see him as one of the boys, which is why in addition to turning on movies and hanging out on the couch together, Joe would also attend to Thad's shattered limbs, providing medical attention and care to the severe wounds that he had viciously inflicted mere moments before.

So this is what he'd do. Joe would fashion makeshift casts using layers and layers of stolen white gym socks. And when I say layers and layers, he had hundreds of socks that he stole. And he would wrap it around Thad's wounds with ace bandages as well. And he was so meticulous, he'd have to make sure that the seams of the socks and the bandages all lined up to make sure that his handiwork was neat and precise.

Yeah. While some sources indicate that this was done as a way of creating a sense of trust and bond with that, almost like Stockholm Syndrome, where the victim almost feels for their abuser or captor and they almost have this bizarre, perverse kind of connection. Some sources say that that's what Joe was trying to establish. But other sources say, and I think this is the side that I fall on, that he was...

purposely fixing Thad so that he could tear him down again. Yeah. Do you know the origin of Stockholm Syndrome, by the way? Do you know that? I do. I do. It was a bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden. Yeah. I just heard it the other day on a podcast, not a true crime podcast. As the night slowly gave way to morning, Thad mustered the courage to ask Joe if he could call his parents simply to reassure them that he was safe. Wow.

Oh.

or C. Joe told Thad that he'd never see or speak to his parents again. He told him that he'd never see or speak to his parents again? Nope. Oh, you got me. He lashed out with him and broke his collarbone? Nope. He gave him the phone? Yeah. Wow. To his surprise, Joe nonchalantly agreed and handed Thad the phone.

Trembling with a mix of hope and anxiety and excitement and relief, Thad started to dial the number to his parents' landline phone, desperate to hear their voices on the other end. When the call wasn't connecting, Thad started to panic.

But it was then that he noticed Joe giggling in the corner and realized with a pit in his stomach that Joe disconnected the phone. Ugh, what a fucking piece of shit. It was a cruel and twisted play executed by Joe in an effort to inflict a level of mental torment that would mirror the physical agony. Ugh.

And Joe derived such pleasure from witnessing the hope drain from Thad's face and eyes. He truly relished in this child's anguish. Yeah, sure.

Thad pleaded desperately with Joe to let him go, making promises to keep this whole fucking ordeal a secret. He said he'd just tell everyone that he merely tripped and he suffered like these horrific injuries, which is such a little kid thing to do. I tripped off the Grand Canyon. Yeah, I know. But for some reason that really broke my heart because I'm like, it's just such a kid. Like you didn't think that went through, did you, baby? You know?

So, of course, Joe callously dismissed Thad's pleas, asserting that nobody would believe that ridiculous account. At that point, Thad decided to try a different tactic and to act like he really was friends with Joe, thinking that maybe Joe wouldn't want to hurt him anymore if he started to see him like a true friend. So, for about two hours, Thad was like hamming it up, which, again, that image breaks my heart. He's in such survival mode. Hamming it up in absolute agony. In absolute agony.

But then, after two hours of going with it, Joe slowly turned his body towards Thad and looked at him in that unprovoked, predatory way that Thad was becoming all too familiar with. Again, it was like a switch flipped inside Joe, propelling him back into that rage-fueled red zone. He then proceeded to carry Thad back upstairs and into the bedroom.

Then he grabbed Thad's left leg and twisted it at the knee until both boys heard it pop and saw that it was now facing backwards. I hate it. Surprisingly, Joe made the decision to leave the house after that. He said he needed to go pick up his girlfriend. Where are his parents, by the way? It's a good question. They were away. So Joe left the house to pick up his girlfriend, likely figuring that Thad was far too hurt to try to fly the coop.

But just in case, before leaving the house, Joe busted Thad up extra brutally to make sure that he would be completely immobilized and wouldn't be a flight risk. But there was still enough fight left in the dog for Thad to make another daring attempt at escape.

Despite the excruciating pain coursing through his broken body, Thad managed to crawl downstairs into the kitchen while Joe was out, feeling that unsettling sensation of his fractured bones shifting around his now deep purple skin and torn muscles. With nothing but fierce determination propelling him forward, Thad reached the kitchen and started searching for a way out. But...

His escape plan was thwarted and his hopes were crushed again when he heard Joe and his girlfriend enter the front door.

Thad knew that he wouldn't be getting out of that house, and he knew that he would be severely punished for attempting to leave. And he was right. When Joe discovered Thad hiding in the kitchen, his eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He was pissed. And the onslaught of violence that he unleashed against the boy for attempting to escape was horrendous.

Joe mercilessly punched, kicked, and stomped on Thad's now grotesquely deformed legs before binding them together and locking him inside of a small, dark bedroom closet. And I'm, stupid question, but his girlfriend is obviously in on this. So... At this point. I don't know, honestly, if she's in on it or if she didn't know what was happening because Joe brought Thad upstairs, snuck

So think about it, right? If she's in a living room and doesn't see the kitchen, I mean, I would think she would hear the noise and the moaning. It's a good question and I don't know the answer to it. I wonder if he gave her a heads up before he brought her back. Just like, hey, just a heads up. I have a 13-year-old kid in here that I'm kicking the shit out of. I'm breaking his bones.

I don't know. Then she's just fucking complicit and equally as disgusting, which is possible. Yeah, for sure. It's worth noting because I was like literally moved to tears over this during the research that during the unrelenting abuse and unimaginable torture, Thad refused to let Joe see him actually cry. Thad exhibited an unwavering resolve and would not allow Joe the satisfaction of seeing him break spiritually or metaphorically,

Everything else about him was sadly broken. His remarkable resilience and exceptional mental fortitude is really, honestly, awe-inspiring. Now, Thad, of course, was struggling to make sense of what was happening to him or why it was happening. And driven by this deep confusion and a quest for answers, Thad confronted Joe and flat out asked him why he was doing this.

And the response he received from Joe was beyond anything Thad was able to understand as it truly defies comprehension, which seems like the theme of this episode. Yeah. Pop quiz. What reason did Joe provide Thad for why he was ruthlessly breaking all the bones in his body? Was it because, A, he enjoyed the sound of bones breaking, B,

B, a voice that only Joe could hear was telling him to do it. C, it was an experiment to see how many bones could break in a human body before it ultimately gave out. Oh my God. He likes the sounds of bones breaking. He's doing it because of the voices or he's experimenting. I'm going to go with A.

You are correct. He likes the sounds of bones breaking. Yep. That's the worst reason. And it's the right answer. Yeah, whatever. I just want to hear him break. Yeah. Crack your knuckles, dude. Or like go get like, I don't know, a rotisserie chicken or something and just fuck with the bones. Yeah. You know? Ew, I don't know why I said rotisserie chicken. I'll be honest. I like the way when you crack your knuckles underwater.

I like the way that sounds. I've never done that. It's fun. I've never thought to do that, you freak. I know. I mean, I'm a knuckle-cracking son of a bitch, and I always have been. It must sound different, obviously. Yeah. It sounds weird. I mean, listen, if you out there are listening and you have cracked your knuckles underwater, I want to hang out. I want to go in a pool with you and just crack our shit underwater. Following a harrowing span of 43 relentless hours of abuse...

During one of their buddy-buddy sessions, Joe revealed to Thad that he'd actually engaged in this deplorable behavior before.

Twice, in fact. One of his previous victims, a boy named Chris who was battered and shattered like Thad, did not survive. And the other victim, he paralyzed. Battered and shattered like Thad-ered. Like Thad-ered. Hearing that, the 13-year-old boy knew that his time was quickly running out. Oh, it's so scary. His body was now thoroughly mangled to a point where he couldn't even feel the pain anymore.

So on the night of July 31st, 1995, Thad decided to make one last attempt at escape after hearing Joe leave the house to attend a local party with his girlfriend. And remember, now that he knows that Joe has done this before and that it has resulted in death, he really feels like it's now or never. Yeah. So Thad remembers now locked inside of a closet. And...

He begins to desperately search around for a tool or an instrument that he could use to help bust down the closet door. And an instrument is exactly what his hand stumbled upon. Using an electric guitar he found inside the closet, Thad smashed down one of the panels in the closet door and freed himself. And he's such a good boy. In one of the interviews, he said that his initial reaction was, oh no, I busted the door. Yeah.

That's what you were trying to do. Yeah. Then, in a tremendous act of sheer will, Thad threw his broken body down the entire flight of steps, smashing each step on the way down and passing out at the bottom. But he kept going. He knew this was his last shot. He used his upper body strength to drag himself from the bottom of the steps to the kitchen where his plan was to get a hold of the phone and

So Thad would slide himself like one foot forward and then blackout. And then he'd wake up, slide himself forward one foot, blackout. And this cycle continued over and over again as he made his way to the kitchen. He lost all sense of time and he wasn't even sure how long it took him to crawl five feet. Could have been five minutes, could have been 20 minutes. He had

No concept of time, just intense fatigue, agonizing pain, and an overwhelming urge to persevere and survive. Yeah. And that is exactly what he did.

Thad reached the kitchen and he pulled down the phone cord dangling down. So you remember phones from the 90s, right? So in interviews, he's like, I couldn't believe how lucky I was that this phone had the long cord that I was able to pull it down and that the numbers were on the phone itself versus on the, you know, like on the wall. Yeah. So otherwise he wouldn't have been able to reach the numbers.

And I've heard the video recording of the police call and it is heartbreaking. So he calls, he tells dispatch that he's been kidnapped and that he's being tortured. Dispatch sends out police officers. And I've also heard the correspondence between the officers that were dispatched with the person who dispatched them. Yeah. Right. And the officers are saying, this better not be a joke. Like this sounds outlandish.

Absolutely ridiculous. Keep in mind, it's a small town, right? When they played back Thad's call, he was so calm and collected that it just smelled of bullshit. Yeah. But thank God, they still responded. Yeah. And as emergency services removed Thad from that hellhole, it was so

He informed them that Joe mentioned that he had other victims, one of whom was named Chris. And I love this. I love this part of the story. So he's being rescued and you hear him like whimpering, but you hear his words very calm and

And all he could think about was telling police that there have been others. Yeah. So selfless. He couldn't remember Chris's last name. So when his father met Thad at the hospital after he was rescued, the two of them went through the phone book looking at all the Chris's in the area. And when they got to the last name Steiner, Thad knew that that was the name that Joe had given him when he revealed who he tortured to death prior to Thad. Wow.

And we're going to hear about Chris Steiner shortly. So just put it on ice. Another one? Yep. Oh boy. So what was the extent of the injuries facing this amazing child warrior, Thaddeus Phillips? After 43 grueling hours of ongoing trauma to his body,

It was described as being something you would see after a particularly bad car crash. That's how brutalized his body was. His legs were broken in four places, including both femur bones and both tibias, which are the shin bones. And his twisted feet, both of them, looked like they were put on his legs backwards, having skin reminiscent of rubber. And his toes were all pointing in funky directions. Yeah.

Wow. Wow.

When Thad entered the hospital, he was experiencing life-threatening internal bleeding as well as severe dehydration, having also been deprived food and water during his captivity. Doctors at St. Clair's Hospital estimated that Thad was about two hours away from dying. Wow. Yeah. Thad required multiple surgeries in the following years, and he was left with a permanent limp as a sad, lasting reminder of the nightmarish ordeal that he just narrowly survived.

But he survived. Yeah. Authorities arrested Joe the night of Thad's rescue while Joe was at the party with his girlfriend. And when law enforcement approached Joe at the party to arrest him for kidnapping and abusing... Oh, they arrested him at the party? Yep. Oh, good. When they went to arrest him, Joe's only comment was, oh, he's still alive? Wow. Yeah. What a sick fuck. Fucking asshole.

Police, of course, conducted a search of Joe's home as well. And what they uncovered in that house was truly chilling. Pop quiz. What was the chilling discovery made in Joe Clark's home? A. A saw-toothed steel hunting trap with a boy's Nike sneaker caught in the springs. B.

B, a notebook containing a handwritten list of the names of 18 local boys. C, a stack of VHS snuff films. Or D, all of the above. I feel like you're trying to trick me right now. D, all of the above. Nope, I was tricking you. I mean, they're all bad, but the chilling choice...

Is the bear trap with the Nike shoe in it. Yeah, no, I made that up. That's even worse that you made that up. It usually is. Then they found a list of 18 names. Yeah, correct. So during the investigation, law enforcement discovered a school notebook containing a list of 18 local boys' names, all of whom were younger than Joe, and all of the names were arranged in three columns. And the headings of the columns were labeled as Get to Know...

Can wait. Oh. And leg thing. Oh my God. This is one of the best parts of doing this podcast is when I see your face like that. Maybe I'm fucked up. Yeah. I mean, that's. You're like unhappy right now. Is that a question? Leg thing. Yeah. Get to know. So it was essentially a kill and maim list.

Oh, what the hell was going on at home with this kid? Great question. And we're going to come around to that. I just want to tell you a few other items that they found in his house. A 48 by 40 inch plywood board with satanic writing and illustrations, a leg brace, a body brace, and several VHS horror films, which like whatever the horror films, you know, they were amateur. I didn't write them down here, but they were not bad. Yeah.

So who exactly is Joe Clark and how did he become the bone breaker?

Now, much of the information I found on Joe's upbringing was derived from an interview I stumbled upon between Joe and a criminologist named Dr. Lee Meller, as well as from subsequent court testimonies provided later on. Joseph Clark was born in 1977 and was actually adopted by the family that raised him. They were middle, maybe slightly lower than middle class, living in Baraboo, Wisconsin. And there's no evidence indicating physical or sexual abuse in his childhood.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But evidently, both of his parents battled severe alcoholism and created an adverse home environment that understandably left a profound impact on Joe's psychological well-being. Yeah. Right? So he would often see his parents passed out and drunk on the kitchen floor, which was always in a constant state of disarray and filth. His whole house. And he got adopted into that home. Right, right. So it was like...

So while his parents did not overtly hurt him or intentionally fuck with him, their behavior and relationship with alcohol likely affected his mental health and behavior. Children who grow up with one or both parents dependent on alcohol can experience post-traumatic stress disorder.

which can include symptoms like a need for control, difficulty managing emotions, low self-esteem, violence. Being bald. Being bald, being jacked, right? Now, obviously, this is not to suggest that everybody who grows up with parents that struggle with alcoholism are going to turn out with PTSD symptoms, but it's not uncommon. Something else that happened in Joe's childhood popped up in my research is

At the age of 15, Joe experienced a very serious dirt bike accident that caused him to suffer a traumatic head injury. His recollection of the incident remains fragmented. He really only recalls mounting his bike on a rainy day and subsequently awakening in the ICU four days later with a subdural hematoma, a broken collarbone, a sprained knee, very bad road rash, and...

and a traumatic brain injury. I like that explanation. Yeah? Well, as far as explaining why his psyche is so twisted. Oh, yeah. So Joe maintains that the head injuries he experienced had negative residual effects on his ability to function and to socially behave. And we've talked about

traumatic brain injuries or TBI before and how it can compromise important neurological functions with respect to self-regulation and behavior. And also, we're not saying that, okay, you have a past to do whatever you want because you have a brain injury. However, when I hear of somebody who goes on some kind of a rampage or commits suicide or whatever, and then you find out later on that they had a brain tumor pushing on the part of their brain that makes them, you know, want to live. Impulse control, right. Yeah.

It's like, okay. Like when my friend Chris killed himself, I was sure they were going to say that, you know, he had some kind of brain tumor. Right. And I never found out. Did he have an autopsy? Do you know?

It's such a long story. I don't know the results of an autopsy, but he had a dramatic, dramatic personality change about a year and a half before he came. A TBI could explain that. He didn't have a traumatic brain injury, but if something was growing in his brain that grew from three to four millimeters and that extra millimeter started pushing on a part of his brain, that would have made sense to me. Right. Because it was such a dramatic personality change. Yeah. Different guy. That's so sad. Yeah.

I'm sorry. It's okay. Think of a TBI like dropping a computer, right? You harm the central processing system of the device or the brain. It's more likely to malfunction. Yeah. Not guaranteed, but more likely. Yeah. The effects of TBI can be significant and encompass issues like anger, aggression, impaired judgment, and

and diminished impulse control. So it's not really surprising to know that there exists a correlation between TBI and violent crime. The question is, how significant is the correlation? Pop quiz, you tell me. What percentage of individuals within the criminal justice system have reported a history of TBI? A, less than 20%, B, up to 60%, C, over 90%.

What percentage of people in the criminal justice system have a history of a traumatic brain injury? Less than 20, up to 60, more than 90. Your short-term memory is on point. I couldn't do it again. Fuck me. Don't even try it. Adjusting, adjusting, adjusting. Fucking shit.

Um, I'm going to say up to 60. Yes. Yeah. Proud of you. Nice job. It's pretty high. It's very high. And these statistics underscore the profound connection between TBI and acts of violence. So my family's law firm where I work, uh,

have handled many NFL cases in which former players suffered TBI while playing football. And it can be very, very impactful, the traumatic brain injuries. So the things that we would see would be memory and thinking problems, confusion, personality changes, erratic behavior, depression, suicidal thinking. It's serious. Roughly two years after Joe Clark's dirt bike accident,

is when this new family, the Phillips, arrived in his small country town, bringing with them a 13-year-old boy named Thad. About how long after? About two years. But he had already done this twice before, before Thad. Very good. When he did that, it was still after the brain injury. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.

And this brings us to where we left off in the case, right? With him meeting Thad, torturing Thad, Thad escaping. Joe's now arrested. Yeah. In October 1997, Joe Clark was charged with the following crimes relating to what he'd done to 13-year-old Thad Phillips. Mayhem? Yes. Nice. You remember what mayhem is?

Something crazy. Nailed it. It's a Class C felony in which there is intent to disable or disfigure. Yeah. Okay. So he was charged with mayhem, attempted first-degree intentional homicide, mental harm to a child, child enticement, and causing great bodily harm to a child. Yeah. He was also charged with burglary and homicidal

I didn't spend too much time, admittedly, on trying to figure out why the burglary charge. I was talking to Dave about this, my husband, and he's like, maybe because he stole Thad. I'm like, no, no. Well, what is burglary when you break into someone's house? Yes. That's my understanding, but... So he wouldn't be charged with robbery. Oh, wow. That was actually so simple. I missed it. I don't even know if that's true. I don't know. That sounded really good. That was very well thought out. How was he not charged with kidnapping? Sorry.

So Joe maintains to this day that he willingly, correct. Which is why he was charged with child enticement, which is luring a minor under the age of 17 into a vehicle building or secluded location for the purpose of committing a crime against said child. So he was charged with child enticement. Do you know what kidnapping is?

To you? Are you asking? No, I remember I watched a clip of a podcast with this guy who went to jail for kidnapping, even though it was the whole big story where a guy sold him a car and then the car was a piece of shit. So he went to the guy's house.

And kidnapping, legally, I think, I may be off by a couple of feet or whatever. It's willfully forcing somebody to move more than like 20 feet or something like that. So he was charged with kidnapping this guy. Wow. Yeah. That's really interesting. And because he was charged with kidnapping, he was in like this maximum security prison. Right. Which he did not, it was like a car transaction gone wrong.

It's crazy. Yeah. Very interesting though. Judge Virginia Wolf was officially presiding over this case and ruled that Joe Clark would be tried as an adult. The author? No, not the author. The judge. Wow. I was going to say, she's pretty good at a lot of stuff. So she was, wait, say that again. Cause I was thinking of the joke. She was. I said that judge Virginia Wolf was officially presiding over the case and ruled that Joe Clark would be tried as an adult. Got it. Okay.

So the trial began in early September of 1995. And on September 7th, which is my anniversary, Joe stood before the judge and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. His defense argued that his biological mother was a heavy drug user throughout most of her pregnancy that caused him to experience a range of developmental, psychological, and emotional disabilities and disorders. Joe Clark's defense attorney, Mark Frank, said,

What's with all these people with their first name and their last name? First, they're all names. Mark Frank, Joe Clark. Virginia Woolf. No, nope. There are two wolves inside of you. I'll say something that maybe I shouldn't. Objectively speaking, for him, even though he did horrific things to this guy, the insanity plea makes sense to me.

You know what it is to be legally insane, right? You don't know what you're doing when you're doing it. Right. So yes, I mean, fuck. I mean, listen, if I, let's say that I had a traumatic brain injury and I did this to somebody, I don't know if I should go to jail or if I should go to a hospital, even though the hospital is going to suck too, because I'm going to be there forever. Right. Well, this is why there are trials because you need witnesses, you need expert testimony, and you need people to assess every aspect of the situation to determine whether

Which parts of his life affected his decision-making, if at all? Yeah, I mean, if you had a traumatic brain injury and you were in utero and your mother was using drugs and your brain is all fucked up, you obviously still have to answer for what you did, but maybe just in a different way. Right, right. I don't know.

So his defense attorney argued all of that. TBI, after the bike crash, the drug use of his birth mother. And he, of course, had medical reports to show and to support that he really did have a blood clot between the skull and the brain, which is a subdural hematoma, following the accident.

As such, Mark Frank argued to the court. Mark Frank what? What's his last name? Right, exactly. Argued to the court that Joe suffered from a continued deterioration and abnormality of the mind. Yeah. He had a bunch of lay witnesses, meaning non-medical professionals, including Joe's mother, Bertha, testify that they noticed a dramatic shift in Joe's personality following the accident, including things like hallucinations, psychotic behaviors,

suicidal ideation, delusions, and social impairment. But the prosecutor, Patricia Barrett, who's actually now a judge, she became a judge in 2018, she basically annihilated these witnesses on cross-examination. So listen to what she did to Joe's mother on the stand.

Wow.

Imagine if they asked her, if you were going 60 miles per hour, how far would you go? Like an SAT question. In one hour. You ever watch people struggle with that on the internet videos of that? No. Oh, it's the funniest thing ever. No, but I would definitely struggle with that. If you're traveling at 60 miles an hour, how far would you go in one hour? 60 miles. Okay, good. You got it. I watch people go like...

I don't know, like 15? It's great. So I don't like this tactic by the prosecution. I think it's a low blow. And I think that they should have leaned heavier on the fact that Bertha and her husband, so Joe's parents, in spite of allegedly noticing these alarming changes in their son's personality following the accident, never got him help.

Hindsight is always 20-20. Yeah. The prosecution presented school records as evidence of Joe's violent behavioral tendencies, revealing how he threatened to kill a teacher and how he punched another student.

And he was given psych evaluations following those violent incidents at school, and they turned up blank in the way of diagnoses or some type of proof of an escalation of violence, right? And it just further proved the prosecution's case that Joe Clark did not suffer from a diminished psychological capacity.

My understanding is that he had a reputation around Baraboo as being a bully always. Baraboo, bad boy. Yeah. And there's something that I'll reveal very shortly to back that up.

The defense suffered another blow when their star witness took the stand. That star witness being Thaddeus Phillips. Thad recounted his harrowing experience at the hands of Joe Clark, the bone breaker, with meticulous precision, providing a vivid and comprehensive account of every descriptive detail. When asked, what did your foot look like after the initial assault on his ankle? Thad just calmly replied, backwards.

He also indicated that Joe would masturbate in front of him, relishing in Thad's pain. He masturbated in front of him? That's what Thad says. Joe denies it. You didn't mention that, Joanne. No, I'm bringing it up here and now. Oh, boy. On the stand, Thad displayed a level of maturity well beyond his years and only required one break during his whole testimony after getting emotional on the stand.

A very well-known, respected forensic psychiatrist named Park Dietz also took the stand to testify. And Park Dietz is a baller. He also testified in some pretty high-profile cases, including the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer,

Ted Kaczynski, the DC sniper attacks, and Betty Broderick. Who's Betty Broderick? What? I don't know who Betty Broderick is. Oh my God, you have to watch Dirty John on Netflix. Oh, I know who that is. Okay. Okay. According to Dietz, Joe Clark 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.

So because of that. He had leg thing in the book. He did. It's not like he snapped and just started breaking legs. Right. Okay. So I. Premeditation. Yeah. Right. He planted, he stalked.

These boys, he watched that for two weeks before breaking into his house. Yeah. And knew the pattern of turning the lights off and locking the door. Right. Exactly. And because of the masturbation, it now elevates what we're seeing in terms of not a diagnosis, but in terms of being able to label him. Yeah. So he's not just a psychopath. Yeah. But he's a sexual sadist as well. Yeah. At trial. Yeah.

Joe also claimed that he had no recollection whatsoever about any of the events that took place over the course of Thad's abduction. In fact, he went on to say that he blanked out, that Joe blanked out, and when he came to, Thad was, quote, bellyaching about his legs.

I mean, douchebag. Yeah, it sounds like something my dad would say if I was like complaining about something. I'll quit your belly again. Hey, Elmer Fudd. Park Dietz indicated that Joe was faking his amnesia and falsely claiming every type of hallucination known to man in order to avoid responsibility for his crimes. Yeah. After just one hour of deliberation, the jury determined that Joseph Clark was sane at the time during which he committed the crime.

As such, Joe Clark was sentenced to 100 years in prison in the Columbia County Jail in Portage, Wisconsin. Wow. He's still in jail. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Now, during the trial, Thad also provided testimony indicating that Joe confessed to the murder of another boy named Chris Steiner.

14-year-old Chris Steiner, real name Christian, vanished from his home a year prior on July 4th, 1994, and he was found dead, draped over a tree stump on the banks of the Wisconsin River at 8.15 p.m. on July 10th. At the time, his body was severely bloated from being in the water and showed signs of considerable decomposition, so much so that he could only be ID'd using dental records.

Although the cause of death was determined to be drowning, the circumstances surrounding his untimely death remained undetermined. So that's what the initial autopsy revealed. And with that level of decomposition, it was difficult for the medical examiner to determine what, if any, injuries to the body were sustained before death versus after. So all they could really conclusively say was that he drowned. Yeah.

But following Thad's testimony, Chris's remains were exhumed and re-examined by the forensic pathologist, Dr. Robert Huntington, who discovered that Chris's legs had suffered four distinct fractures to his ankles and his knees. It was therefore determined that Chris had been thrown into the water in his injured state, rendering him unable to use his legs to swim, which ultimately caused him to drown. Oh, God.

So, prosecutors argued that the injuries to the two boys were not only similar in nature, but also indicative of which of the following things? Pop quiz. A. Joe's modus operandi. B. Joe's signature or trademark. C. Joe's need to stage. Joe's signature. No.

Joe's modus operandi. Yeah. I don't know what need to stage means. Okay, that's what I'm here for. Okay. So these are all very nuanced terms that are important investigative tools for law enforcement. Because if you can learn to recognize crime scene manifestations or like behavioral patterns, you can learn to recognize crime scene manifestations.

It can help you to identify the offender and to distinguish between different offenders. So you know when you're analyzing a crime scene if it was done by the same person or not. So modus operandi is a method of operation. It's a particular way of doing something that indicates or suggests the work of a single criminal in more than one crime. So here, the modus operandi were the four fractures.

A signature applies mostly to serial killers and is an offender's personal mark left on a victim or crime scene that is unique unto them. So remember in Home Alone when the burglars would clog the kitchen sink and then purposely flood it? Yeah, the wet bandits. The wet bandits, exactly. That was their signature. Yeah. Staging is the deliberate alteration of the crime scene, either for shock value or to throw investigators off their scent. Interesting. So a lot of freaks will...

let's say, decapitate their victim and put the head in the refrigerator. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's staging for shock value. I was here. Right. Is what they're saying. So now, the trial of Joe Clark for the murder of Chris Steiner was set to begin. But something

fucking insane happened right before that trial was supposed to start. Pop quiz. I know we just did one, but what happened? A, Thad was shot by a hunting rifle after opening his front door. B, Joe jumped off a roof and broke nearly every bone in his own body. C, it was discovered that Joe's girlfriend somehow got a seat on the jury.

B. Joe jumped off a roof? No. I thought he just wanted to hear his bones break. Yeah, I know. That's why I created that. His girlfriend got a seat on the jury? No. I'm back, baby. I'm back to sucking shit. It's the tank we know and love. At pop quizzes. I don't even remember what A was. Oh, he got shot? Yes. This is astounding to me.

So a 15-year-old boy named Michael Hubsch, so this kid Michael, 15 years old, lived across the street from Joe Clark. He shot Thad twice in the back with a hunting rifle after getting Thad to open his front door. Wait, what? Michael was good friends with Joe and he was resentful of Thad for testifying against Joe.

And he wanted to prevent him from being able to testify at Kristiner's trial. So he shot him twice. But guess what? Thad survived because that's what Thad does. What the fuck? What kind of neighborhood? Well, I'm going to tell you what kind of person Michael was.

In 2013, so years after, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison after sexually assaulting a young girl. What about shooting Thad? It's funny you say that. I don't know what he got. He was a minor at the time. I'm not sure what his penalty was at the time, but he was in the world to a point where he was sexually abusing children. Yeah.

Anyway, Thad, who was injured once again, refused to back down and give up once again. What a boss. He is king.

He was determined to take down Joe Clark in every way that he could and to help bring some justice to Chris Steiner. So in spite of being shot twice in the back with a fucking rifle, Saad still showed up at the trial and provided his testimony. And in the case of Chris's murder, Joe elected to plead not guilty. There was obviously a lot of damning evidence and testimony that was very, very interesting, but I can't go into it here because we'd be here for like three hours.

But the bottom line is that less than one week following his guilty verdict in Thad's trial, Joe Clark was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Chris Steiner. And he was given an additional life sentence. And Chris's family...

was so incredibly grateful to Thad for bringing some semblance of closure and justice to their boy. Yeah. Because they likely would have spent the rest of their life trying to figure out exactly what happened to Chris. And now they could just focus on rebuilding to the extent that that's possible after losing a child. Yeah.

To this day, Clark maintains that he has no memory of what he did to Thad and claims that he was innocent in the murder of Chris Steiner. Bullshit. He's made repeated attempts to appeal his convictions, but each time they were promptly and rightfully dismissed due to lack of merit. Good. And this is what I'm leaving off on.

When asked how he survived that horrendous ordeal, 43 hours of unrelenting torture and abuse at the hands of a sexual sadistic psychopath, Thad said, I survived because I wanted to be with my family. I didn't want to leave my family and I know they wouldn't want to lose me. That's some will to live and bravery and courage and grit and determination. What is he doing now? He has a family now. Yeah.

He is struggling financially, which is very sad for me to have to report. Interestingly, he won an award of $21 million against Joe Clark, but Joe has not a pot to piss in. Yeah. But the judge, I love this part, but the judge acknowledged the possibility that Joe might potentially profit from the notoriety of this case. And if he ever did, the judge declared that any monetary gains would go right to Thad.

Yeah, I mean, I'd like to help that. There is a GoFundMe page. Is there? Yeah, a family friend of his set up a GoFundMe page, so. What's his last name? Phillips. Thaddeus Phillips? Yes. T-H-A-D? I-U-S. I-U-S? Mm-hmm. That's Thaddeus. They pronounce it Thaddeus, okay. It's good, the, uh,

The Dias. Etymology. I'm sorry. Thaddeus Phillips. Go fund me. Google it. Yeah. Maybe psychopedia can change this guy's life. I would love if that happened. He is so deserving. I am amazed. You know what? Actually, we'll put the link in the. Okay. Yeah. Great idea. I love that idea. Click on it. Yeah. So he has a family of his own, which makes me happy to think about. I did find that his mother has since passed away.

But he does have a bunch of siblings, actually. And he's just a pillar of strength and resilience and fortitude. And as we say when we come across these cases where the survivors just show such immense strength, like Mary Vincent, Peyton Lutner in the Slenderman case, especially when it's children like those examples, it's astounding. I feel like if I stubbed my toe as a child...

It was the end of the world. You were bellyaching. I was bellyaching. Bellyaching hard. Right. Like Cash was at the beginning of the episode. Oh, baby. I haven't heard any tummy grumbling since, so maybe it's a... He got embarrassed. Working its way. Yeah. Oh, boy. Where it needs to go, and I'm going to walk him in your yard. Oh, cool. Well, thanks. I hated this case so much. It made me feel a lot of things that I was very uncomfortable with.

Okay. That's not a bad thing. That's, you know, feeling all the feels. Process it. We can talk about it more on Patreon. Patreon.com slash psychopedia for your psychopedia unhinged episodes where we get nuts. Yeah. Unhinge ourselves. Oh man, I can't wait to see you guys on there. Yeah. So thanks for listening. Rate, review, subscribe and share with a friend and we'll see you next week. Bye everyone.