In 1995, 13-year-old Thad Phillips was abducted from his Baraboo, Wisconsin home by Joe Clark, a teenager with a disturbing obsession for breaking bones. Thad endured a harrowing two days of brutal torture before managing to escape and help unravel a wider mystery.
The Abduction
Thad Phillips had moved to Baraboo, Wisconsin, with his family. He was a well-liked, confident youngster whom his neighbours fondly described as "cheerfully cocky." He was also athletic and a passionate baseball player.
Thad was enjoying a carefree summer evening, completely oblivious to the terrifying ordeal that would befall him late in July. He was sitting in his living room when an intruder forced their way into his home. Half-asleep, Thad mistook the stranger for his father, assuming he was simply being carried up to bed. And so, when the man lifted him up, Thad went without resistance.
Disturbingly, the intruder carried Thad into the woodland surrounding his home. It was at this moment that Thad's instincts kicked in and he sensed something was deeply wrong. The man appeared friendly, speaking to him about people Thad knew from school. Thad followed him into a rundown property, where the stranger claimed others were due to join them.
43 Hours of Terror
Upon entering, Thad recalled being struck by a dreadful stench, with the interior strewn with rubbish and filth. The man instructed Thad to follow him upstairs, claiming he had something to show him before the gathering. The boy unwittingly stepped into the room where he would be held captive for 43 hours, enduring severe physical and psychological torment.
Inside the room, the teenager identified himself as Joe Clark. Clark was a 17-year-old youth with a deeply troubling fixation on breaking human bones. He continued chatting with Thad casually as though they were friends, discussing baseball and cards and similar subjects. Thad rapidly developed a misleading sense of safety around Joe.
That all transformed when Joe revealed he had killed two other boys twelve months previously. Upon hearing this, Thad was engulfed by a surge of fear, bewilderment and absolute terror. Before he had any opportunity to react, Clark's manner changed drastically. He threw Thad onto the bed and, as Thad attempted to protect himself, Clark twisted his ankle until the bone snapped with a sickening crack.
Thad later recalled: "My feet were backwards. He kept twisting and twisting". Thad's skin was described as resembling a "twisted rubber band", according to GoalCast. The trauma and suffering were overwhelming and the pain so unbearable that he blacked out.
Escape Attempts
When Thad came round, Joe returned to a composed and friendly manner, acting as though nothing had occurred. This left Thad in an increasingly delicate emotional and psychological condition. He was also enduring considerably greater pain than before. He asked Clark to provide him with a phone so he could inform his family he was safe.
In a surprising turn, Joe agreed and passed him a telephone, offering Thad a flicker of hope that an escape might be within reach. It was only when he tried to call his parents that he realised the cord had been cut. Joe looked on with grim satisfaction as the hope visibly faded from Thad's face. Yet Thad had not completely given up — he still clung to the belief that he might somehow make it out alive.
Rather than focusing on escape, he shifted his attention towards simply surviving. For the rest of that night, he lay on the floor wide awake, gripped by terror at what might await him. The next morning, Thad considered ways to forge a connection with Joe, convinced it could boost his chances of survival by "buying time" and preventing further attacks. After a prolonged period, Clark briefly stepped out of the room.
Seizing the opportunity, Thad made his move. He bolted down the stairs as fast as his battered body could carry him, feeling the broken bone in his ankle shift further up his leg. But Clark caught the injured boy outside and dragged him back into the house. Clark then turned vicious, abandoning all pretence, and subsequently broke his hip.
Clark then informed Thad that his girlfriend was coming to visit. He left Thad alone in the bedroom, where he began plotting his next attempt at freedom. He crept silently down the stairs while Joe and his girlfriend sat on the sofa watching television. Thad reached the kitchen but realised any further movement would make noise and alert Joe. He therefore remained in the kitchen, waiting for Clark to discover him there. Upon doing so, Clark subjected him to further torment, fracturing his femur.
Despite two failed escape attempts, Thad's resolve never wavered. Clark informed Thad that he needed to vacate the property and ensure there would be no further escape bids, before confining him to a darkened cupboard in his room. Inside that cupboard, Thad waited in silence until he was certain his captor had gone. During this time, he stumbled upon an old electric guitar, which he used to batter down the door.
He made a desperate dash towards the nearest telephone, but barely able to walk, he concluded the only way downstairs was to hurl himself down the staircase. Thad succeeded in reaching the bottom, suffering additional injuries in the process, before crawling to the kitchen and immediately calling the police. Officers initially suspected a prank call, but Thad implored them: "No, no, just get me out of here."
Cold Case Solved
Upon their arrival, officers found Thad on the kitchen floor with serious injuries. His knee had been wrenched completely backwards and both ankles were broken. Clark was arrested at the scene, but when questioned about Thad's condition, he claimed to have no recollection of events, indicating he had "kind of blacked-out."
Thad was rushed to hospital, where he gradually recovered. At trial, Thad disclosed that Clark had admitted to murdering two other boys prior to kidnapping him. Based on this revelation, police re-examined a cold case concerning a boy named Chris Steiner, whose death had initially been ruled an accidental drowning.
A new autopsy determined that Steiner's legs and ankles had been broken in an identical manner to Thad's, leading to a revised cause of death. Officers sought to identify the second boy referenced but their attempts yielded no results. A search of Clark's residence discovered notebooks featuring a kill list of between 25 and 30 additional boys.
Clark entered a no contest plea, claiming not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, with his mother's excessive drinking during pregnancy thought to be a contributing factor. Clark was handed a life sentence with an extra 50 years. Having submitted multiple appeals, all of which were dismissed, he continues to serve his sentence to this day.
Thad was granted $21 million in damages, yet said he never saw a single penny of the compensation. To this day, Thad still lives with both the physical and mental trauma of his experience, but remains profoundly grateful to have survived.
