Small Town Murder - #32 - Broken Bones & Brutal Murder in Baraboo, Wisconsin

Episode Date: August 23, 2017

This week, we look at the circus loving town of Baraboo, Wisconsin, where one person's acts of brutality were like nothing anyone had ever seen. One young man's desire to live was the only thing that kept a potential serial killer from achieving his goals.Along the way, we find out just who you call when there's an escaped elephant in your yard, what goes on inside of a circus museum, and exactly how to get down stairs with two broken legs!!Hosted by James Pietragallo & Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!!Please subscribe, rate, and review!Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!Head to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder!For merchandise: crimeinsports.threadless.comCheck out James and Jimmie's other show: Crime in Sports Follow us on social media!Facebook: facebook.com/smalltownpodInstagram: instagram.com/smalltownmurderTwitter: twitter.com/MurderSmall Contact the show: [e-mail] See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week, we look at the circus-loving town of Baraboo, Wisconsin, where a teenager shocked everyone with his unchained brutality. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello, everybody.

Welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Oh, yay, yay, indeed. My name is James Petrigallum here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Westman. Oh, we are so excited to be joining you this week. Damn right. Thank you guys so, so much for hanging out with us and coming back again this week. And if you're a new listener, welcome aboard.

Welcome back. This is a crazy, crazy, crazy story. They're not welcomed back. Well, they're not welcomed back. They're welcoming. We'll welcome them in. Welcome. Grab a seat, everybody.

Welcome. I'm an idiot. The rest of you, shut up if you've been here a while. We're welcoming the new people. We're talking to this guy. Yeah, they're going to have to get up and announce themselves. We're not. Anyway, thank you guys so much for your iTunes reviews this week. Super helpful. God, they're so helpful. I'm telling you guys, they're our to have to get up and announce themselves. Anyway, thank you guys so much for your iTunes reviews this week.

Super helpful. God, they're so helpful. I'm telling you guys, they're our life's blood. On the business end, that is what makes things happen. That's what drives you up the charts. That's what gets you noticed, even though no one seems to ever fucking notice us. I don't know if you guys have noticed, but we're high on the charts. We have a shitload of listeners.

People listen. People give a shit. We have a shitload of listeners. People listen. People give a shit. We have more iTunes reviews than Alec Baldwin and Oprah combined. Right. But we can't get a goddamn mention. Nothing. Anywhere. Nobody cares.

In an article. All these, hey, this top, this true crime podcast. Never a mention. Honestly, we're not a niche. That's what it is. We've talked about it before. We're not a niche. No.

We're not like- We're as broad as it gets. We're not honestly we're not a niche that's what it is we've talked about it before we're not a niche no we're not like we're not as broad as it gets we're not 20 we're not like you know like you know uh some women of of a certain like type we're not like uh you know like two gay guys we're not like bro dudes enough to get like coverage and that sort of thing we're just people doing a show that's like that's all we're doing. It's tough when we don't. It's fucked up is what it is. Thank you guys. It doesn't even matter because you guys, it doesn't matter. You guys are why we're doing it anyway.

I'm not doing it for newspaper articles. I'm not doing it for lists. Help to make more money, but still, I'm just saying you guys, it doesn't matter. We get it from you guys and that's all we need. Thank you guys is what we're saying for that. We don't need the love of others. If your love is swelling so much, it just

makes your heart fill with something that you need to do more, you can. You can go on patreon.com slash crime in sports. That's our other podcast, but you should also listen to because it's like this except with sports. Crazy fun. Same thing. So you got to check it out. You don't have to like sports.

You can also go to PayPal and make a one-time donation if you feel like doing that a little bit more. You do our email address, which is crimeinsports at gmail.com. We'll take it and appreciate the shit out of it. And God is every dime so appreciated. You guys have no idea. And we'll tell you just how appreciated later on when we do shout-outs and everything else. But first, we need to do a little disclaimer. Yes. A little disclaimer, of course.

This is a comedy podcast. It is. It is. We're stand-up comedians. We are. So jokes happen, and they're going to happen. They do. The facts are real.

They're not. This isn't bullshit. We're not making stuff up. This isn't, I don't, there's no facts I throw in just for a comedic reason. I'd love to just add stuff. Hey, it'd be really funny if the guy did this now. That'd be great, but that's not what we do. The jokes come at the expense of, honestly,

murderers, for the most part. Bumbling police forces. Maybe some goofy little feature of a small town where every town is a town to hear from. There's a quirk. Everybody's got a quirk town that I'm from. We all have quirks. And actually, too, in a few episodes we're going to have a murder from

my actual hometown. Yeah. So you can hear me rip apart where I'm from. So that way, no one can complain anymore. I love it. Because I will be much more brutal on where I'm from than anywhere else in the world. Deservedly so. Except maybe Santa Claus, Georgia, because that was a little weird. That's stupid.

But where we have today is even weirder and scarier than Santa. It's not a themed town, but the town very much started and revolves around something that I find creepy as shit, and we'll get into this. Can't wait to hear. And the crime is horrific. Absolutely horrific. So stick around for that. But if you think that true crime and comedy never have any place together, you're not

going to like this. You're just not. So we appreciate it. It's going to be fun for you. We'll shake hands part ways, part as friends. You don't have to send us nasty messages or anything like that. Thank you very much. If you're still around, you're in on your own volition.

So buckle up, assholes. Let's go. Shut up and give you murder. Let's do this. Because guess what? We are assholes, but we are not scumbags. Exactly, Jimmy. That's it.

We never, ever make jokes at the expense of the victim or the victim's families, ever. We don't try. We're not, like we said, we're assholes. We're not scumbags. So let's do this. Let's head back to the U.S. from Australia last week. It's so hot. Angry, drunken Captain Kangaroo.

I got a sunburn on my bald spot. Oh, I'm telling you, it's brutal over there. The ozone layer thin. Yeah. Just thin. It's terrible. Let's head. We said many times last week how it sounded like Wisconsin there almost.

So much like Wisconsin. So what the hell? Let's go to Wisconsin. What do you say? Let's compare the two side by side. Let's go. We said many times last week how it sounded like Wisconsin. So much like Wisconsin. So what the hell? Let's go to Wisconsin. What do you say? Let's compare the two side by side. Let's go to Baraboo, Wisconsin. OK. And yeah, kind of a silly name right off the bat. So that, you know, sets the tone. Sounds like an animal. Yeah, it's actually not. We'll get into how it's named. It's pretty, pretty tame, actually, and boring. But whatever. We'll make fun of it and it won't be boring. Much like the majority of Wisconsin. Much like a lot of Wisconsin.

If you drive through Wisconsin, which I have, it is just a stereotype. Every exit on the highway is cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, more cheese. Competing cheese factory dealers. And then breweries. And the same exit. Breweries in the cities. And then, yeah, you have your vineyards also, too. These small towns are just teeming with vineyards lately.

I don't know. Every small town we do, huge vineyards everywhere. How much wine? My sister lived in Wisconsin for a while, and she's married to a native Wisconsin, like a guy that was born and raised there. Oh, boy. Oh, my. And they all look just like Steve Avery. Yeah, it's interesting.

It's bananas. They're all just so pale. Sorry, Wisconsin. With such white hair. You arevery. It's bananas. They're all just so pale with such white hair. It's bizarre. Well, I mean, it's cold there, so we'll give them the paleness there, but you don't have to stay there. That's the thing. Let's get into Baraboo. It's in the south central part of the state here.

It's about an hour from Madison, which is the state capital, and with the colleges and all that sort of thing. But no partying going on here in Baraboo, really. It's not Madison. We'll say that. Two hours from Milwaukee. So, you know, yeah, it's just kind of rural. It's a hall to get anywhere fun.

Yeah, it's suburban Wisconsin. It's a boredom, I feel like, is a big deal here. That's going to play a big part in what we're going to talk about this week. It's in Sauk County. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that right. Who knows? Honestly. Eldorado is not Eldorado. So I will take nothing for granted anymore. Sauk in Sauk County. I'm sure I'm not pronouncing that right. Who knows? Honestly. El Dorado is not El Dorado, so I

will take nothing for granted anymore. I know Baraboo is right because I looked up again in a local newscast of something hilarious that we'll talk about. It's the best newscast ever. I'm like, is it Baraboo? And people are going to bitch at me, so I'm like, no. So everybody on Twitter, it's Baraboo,

so relax. Zip code 53913 area code 608 uh 7.47 square miles so not a tiny town not a huge town just kind of a small town uh not to be confused with west baraboo oh oh don't don't confuse it with west baraboo guy i know a war when i said baraboo everyone went west baraboo that's what i did originally and then i said oh no no it's just baraboo it's a famous west baraboo, everyone went West Baraboo? That's what I did originally. And then I said, oh, no, no, it's just Baraboo. It's famous West Baraboo, which is a smaller town, which is a suburb of this small town. Really? So that's really.

They just went and seceded from the union? Yeah, man. You're like a fissure on a hemorrhoid at that point. That's not great. What's the point? What is the point? The town's website says right up front prominently, quote, welcome to Gem City. Oh, boy.

So welcome, everybody, to Gem City. It's named after the nearby Baraboo Hills, which are designated as, quote, one of the last great places by the Nature Conservancy because of their rare rocks, plants, and animals. Okay. Hills were created by glaciers, obviously. That's kind of how hills form for the most part. Generally. So, yeah, around that area. So that's kind of how hills form for the most part. Generally. So, yeah, around that area.

So that's why it's the gem. Whatever the hell. First people to settle. It's a guy named Abe Wood, who sounds boring as shit. It's not like Abe Wood had no fun at all. He didn't drink. He was a whittler. He didn't smoke.

He whittled. He got up at like 430 in the morning. He was in bed by seven. Yeah. He made whistles and pipes. Yeah, that was it. He's made a good duck call. Probably see these are like duck people damn right there's a abe wood i'm a yeah very there's a lot of real tree camo absolutely man absolutely he's just very

very stern man beats his children obviously 1800s every six or eight days maybe come on let's i think maybe a beard to keep warm yeah it's probably bearded to keep warm in the 1800s up there, but it's originally called Adams, this village. The town became, in 1846, the county seat of Sauk County after what is deemed a fierce fight with the nearby village of Reedsburg. Oh, boy. I don't know what that entails. I never could find out if there was gunplay or if they were raiding each other's villages, like warring tribes. I don't know what that entails. I never could find out if there was gunplay or they were raiding each other's villages, like warring tribes. I don't know what was going on.

There was a lot of drunken fist throwing. That's right, but Baraboo wins out, goddammit. It's incorporated as a city in 1882. So you get that. It is, okay. It started out really where the population came from. It was the home of the Ringling Brothers Circus. Oh my goodness.

Are you serious? This is the circus town. Yeah. From 1884 to 1917, it was the headquarters of their circus and also a bunch of other circuses. All right. This was for some reason, this was like Hollywood for circuses. They called it Circus City.

Wow. Circus City, USA right here. This is weird as shit. Full disclosure, I fucking hate the circus, okay? I don't like the circus. Not just because of torturing animals. It's some other shit, huh? That has nothing to do with me.

I knew it. I'm a clown guy. I'm very anti-clown. And you know this about me. I have a joke. I got in a fist fight with a clown one time, and it's a real thing. I don't like clowns. I think they're dicks, and they're doing it on purpose.

Fuck them and screw any town that builds around them. You mean they're being dicks on purpose. They are. They're being complete assholes on purpose. They know that you're scared of them. That's why they're doing it. They're being assholes. It's a sick, sadistic thing to be a clown.

It's creepy. I'm going to scare children for a living. That's nice. For a living. You know it's not much of a living. Not on the side or anything. This is going to be my job. Jesus Christ.

So it was a huge circus city, several circuses. Today they have the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, and it's a living history museum. It has a collection of circus wagons and other circus artifacts, and they have circuses going on in there. They still have circuses going on? Oh, yeah. It's crazy.

It's crazy. It also has the largest library of circus information in the United States. How much circus information do you need? I don't know how many other places are gathering up as many circus facts as they can into one location, but apparently there's some, and these guys have cornered the fucking market, though. The museum used to have a great circus parade, which had circus wagons and performers going all through the street and all through the streets of Baraboo and across the state by train. The Ringling Theater is a grand scale movie palace in downtown Baraboo. So the Ringling family helped put that in. Definitely the biggest building in town.

Probably. The Ringling home still exists. Really? It still exists, yeah. There was a large munitions factory there during World War II called the Badger Army Ammunition Plant. This place is important. It is. munitions factory there during World War II called the Badger Army Ammunition Plant. This place is important. It is.

And also, too, Circus Aircraft was there as the maker of the world's best-selling single engine aircraft, the SR-22. It was the first manufacturer to install a whole-plane parachute recovery system on their aircraft. The whole plane has a parachute? Yeah. It'll just float to the ground safely after a loss of control. Fascinating. That's amazing.

That's like a toy rocket or something that's coming down. It's super strange. I think everybody's heard of an SR-22, though. It's a very popular plane. Yeah, I guess it's pretty much the standard whatever plane. Now, in June 2017, this news report that I listened to is amazing. At the circus, they have an 84-pound Asian elephant named Kelly. 84 pounds? 8,400 pounds.

Oh my God. Asian elephant named Kelly. So one morning in June of 2017 of this year, early in a Friday morning, somebody goes outside of their house and realizes there's a goddamn elephant in their yard. It got loose. It got loose. So the circus director, a guy named Scott O'Donnell,

said, this kind of escape isn't common. It's like, I should sure as shit hope not. It's a goddamn elephant walking around. It's an 8,400 pound animal. Destroy whatever it wants. Who's going to do anything about it? Apparently, she's attracted this elephant to anything shiny, like the nuts and bolts of the enclosure. So she released a

couple of the bolts holding a latch hinge. How smart are these giant animals? Stop keeping them locked up because they're too smart for this shit. Giving Kelly, actually Kelly was the escaped one. Kelly escaped. Okay. And then the Isla one went back in there. And yeah, they just went over, just eating plants out of someone's yard, just eating

up somebody's garden. Yeah, that's it. Now, the circus said, well, they highlighted an area that now we know was a weakness. I'm glad they didn't stomp an entire preschool class or something to find that out. How funny is that? The elephant highlighted that, and the people couldn't highlight it. They couldn't figure it out. But these elephants will highlight it.

So this tiny circus town with elephants walking through the streets, it's a crazy place. Population of this crazy place, 12,155 people, which is up a lot. About 14% since the year 2000. Pretty average on a lot of the stats. Few more males than females, which is a little odd. Cool thing, median age there, for the first time, is

exactly the national average. 37.4. So they're exactly average on that. More old people than usual. Slightly less kids. It evens out a little bit. Okay. Normal and everything else. Married, divorced. A few more widows than usual, but there's a little more old people here than there usually

is. Racial breakdown of the place. It is 93.5% white, which is what you'd expect from a small Wisconsin town. Any town outside of Milwaukee, pretty much. Is that percentage transparent, actually? Yes. Because they are so clear. It's 91% insanely pale, and then there's like two and a half percent that are just white.

They're just considered white. One and a half percent black, less than one percent Asian, which is way under the five percent normal. So, yeah, three percent Hispanic. So it's a pretty white town, I would say. Just a little town in Wisconsin. A little more religious than I would expect, honestly, for the northern area up there. 51.3% religious, which is actually over the national average by a couple percentages, which we normally don't find in northern states. Right. So that's interesting. Most of the people there of the 51.3% are in the Church of the Circus, which is a clown show. I'm just kidding.

There's no clown show. Jimmy looked at me nodding his head like, okay, Church of the Circus. Keep going. You were buying that shit. Okay. No. 20% Catholic, 20% Lutheran, a bunch of just other Christian denominations. Zero percent.

You're afraid of the bearded lady. That's it. They do. They do. They have a clown up on a cross. It's very disturbing. It's very odd. Very odd.

That would terrify me. No, I would run up and punch it right in the dick. I don't give a shit how sacred it is to you. i would hit it in the dick with a with a dancing monkey that's right yeah who's tied up now asshole let's see what you got yeah you want to blow up some balloons now i don't think so you're gonna need your hands for that dick face exactly uh so uh yeah zero percent jewish zero percent muslim as i might expect, honestly, in Wisconsin. 59% Democrat, 40% Republican here, so it's a more Democratic area. The economy here is not going terribly. It's just it's a blue-collar place.

That's why it gets so Democratic, because up there in that general area between Detroit and— A lot of those people probably union cheese workers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I was going with. Yeah. You're probably going to get that, a lot of union cheese workers. Are cheese workers union? I would hope so. The cheese union. The cheese workers. That's what I was going with. You're probably going to get that. A lot of union cheese workers. Are cheese workers union? I would hope so.

The cheese union. The cheese union. Very powerful, the cheese union. Don't fuck with the cheese union. I'm sure there's a dairy union. It's got to be. I am positive there's some sort of dairy worker union. That is very powerful.

And the cheese guys are part of it. Oh, they're part of that, yeah. I'm the cottage ones. You had to ensnare them. If you don't have cottage cheese on board, you're not going to go anywhere in this business. You're not doing anything. Low unemployment rate. By the way, we had a listener send a thing in a very, very lengthy

and I appreciate all the effort put into the message about unemployment rates and how they're not really that reflective of things. We understand this isn't like an exact science on the unemployment rate. It's just if it's 3% or 25%, you can kind of get a whiff of what we're talking about here. That's not the end-all, be-all.

So we just wanted to clear that up with somebody because we've had one town that was like 25%. Clearly, there's more unemployed people there than this town that is 3.5%. So it's that sort of thing here. Median household income is $39,923, so right about $40,000, which is a little less than the $53,000 average here. The people here, the jobs, 30% of them, a good chunk, 30% fall in the $25,000 to $50,000 range. So it's a blue collar. And then there's also a good amount in the $75,000 to $100,000 range, I guess, cheese managers.

They're overseers of the cheese factory. I guess they make a little more. And then very little, only about 20% of the average of $150,000 or more in earnings. So it's not a lot of wealthy people. Cheese doesn't pay very well. Cheese doesn't pay well. You might be able to, you'll make a living. You can live in this town, have a nice little life, go to the circus twice a week like everyone else.

That's right. Go to church at 10 o'clock Sunday morning like everybody else. Get home, see the Packer game. You know how it works over there. And the jobs here, very, very blue collar again. Not a lot of engineering, computer science, management, business, finance. All those are lower. Meanwhile, your production, transportation, material moving is like three times the average, that sort of thing.

So I assume cheese falls into the production. Probably. I would imagine. Material moving is the shit scooper. It's the shit scooper and the dairy. Cost of living, we do 100 being par for cost of living. That's like average. Cost of living here is 90.

Most things are pretty normal. Housing is a 71. Okay. So that's a little lower, just kind of commensurate with the income, which is good. Median home cost here is $132,000, which is about $50,000 less than the average nationally. Half the houses there are valued between $100,000 and $200,000. So that's what you're getting. You're getting people are making $45,000 a year, and their house is worth $130,000.

And that's what they're doing. And they're going to the circus, and they're hating clowns. Imagine how scared you must be if you're a child that doesn't like— If you live in that town? Oh, my God. You're a child who doesn't like clowns, and you live in that. It's all you think of. There's just circus music going in your head all the time.

Jesus Christ, these poor kids. Baraboo, Wisconsin, real estate report. Fantastic. In case we have convinced you to move here, two-bedroom apartment here will cost you about $780. I found a few houses here. I found a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,600-square-foot beauty. Not bad. For $174,900.

You want to jump on that? Lots of offers already, so get right on that. If you want to spend a little less, I found a three-bedroom, one-bath for $110,000. A little starter home there. And if you want to go all out, you are the manager of the cheese factory. You are him. You're running it all. You are Mr. Craft.

You're Mr. Munster. That's right, baby. You're Mr. String right here. Polly O himself. It's a four-bedroom, four-bath, 3,300-square-foot, very nice house for $250,000. That's awful. Very reasonable for a house of that size and anywhere else in the country, probably, except for small towns, mainly, which is what we do here.

Things to do in Baraboo, Wisconsin. I can guess a couple already. Well, number one, Devil's Lake State Park. That's number one? Well, Wisconsin. I can guess a couple already. Well, number one, Devil's Lake State Park. That's number one? Well, I'm just going to say that first. Devil's Lake State Park, they really want to push that. They probably get a couple bucks on the parking, kick back to the town.

So they want to push the state park there. As long as there's toilets, because that's the only way they can charge to enter a state park, is if there's running water. That's it. And, of course, the Circus World Museum. You betcha. That's it, man. Devoted to circus-related history. That's it. And of course, the Circus World Museum. You betcha. That's it, man. Devoted to circus related history. That's what it says on their

Wikipedia page. Devoted to creeps. Devoted to scaring the shit out of children for over a hundred years. Yeah, during the summer it hosts daily live circus performances. Terrific. Frightening as it gets. Every damn day we put a bear in a skirt. Every fucking day. We put a bear in a skirt, we make

an elephant do some shit, and then we send children home with nightmares for the rest of their natural lives in joy. Thinking they can tell an elephant to sit, and it will sit. Yeah, no problem. Yeah, that's when they're in the yard. Sit, elephant, and it stomps them. Right. Nice. Sit on this beach, Paul.

No. No. Fuck you. Jesus, it's terrible, man. Crime rates in this town, what we're here for, the crime, property crime, burglary, theft, all that sort of thing. It's very high. It's a third higher than the national average and about double the state

average. So very high. Can't trust those shifty circus folk. They're coming in and out. They're all covered in makeup. Smell of guelph and shit, so you should be able to catch them. Travel around the goddamn country. They're exhausted. They're not going to work. Goddamn carnies. Sons of bitching carnies. There is probably unsolved rapes everywhere for these country. They're exhausted. They're not going to work. Goddamn carnies. Sons of bitching carnies. There is probably unsolved rapes everywhere for these people.

I know it. Violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and assault is low. Really? Very low. Almost one-third lower than the national average and even slightly lower than the state average. So it's a pretty crime-free little town. They're happy. They have a circus. I guess a nice place to grow up if you're not scared shitless of clowns.

But let's find out about some people who it wasn't such a nice place for. Fantastic. Especially growing up like these people. Yeah. This story here. Let's start out. Set a baseline. And July 4th, 1994.

Okay. Fourth of July in Circus Town, USA, baby. That is Circuit City, USA. Circuit. Circus City, USA. It's really hard Circuit City, USA. Circuit. Circus City, USA. It's really hard to say and not say circuit. Still, though, they're more relevant than the circus, I feel like. So even a bankrupt electronics company is more relevant than a fucking circus to me at this point.

Everybody's dream, Fourth of July in Circus Town. Can you imagine elephants wandering through the streets? It was glorious. So much red, white, and blue all over those poor animals. Yes. We have a family, the Steiner family. Their son, Chris, is 14 years old. He goes to bed.

Everybody goes to bed on the 4th of July. They had their fireworks. They all had their bratwurst, I'm sure. Yeah, I betcha. Just a block of cheese. Everybody had a nice time. And then when they- You just pass it around and nibble on it.

You know they do. There you go, buddy. It's like a joint. That's a Wisconsin... They call that a Wisconsin joint. That's called a Wisconsin doobie right there. Just a big hunk. A big hunk of cheddar.

Pass that Wisconsin doobie my way, will you? That's right. Oh, yeah. That's the good shit right there. Around a campfire while it gets soft. That's the good shit right there. You can taste the dairy in that bad boy. Let me tell you something.

I don't know why I gave him that accent, but that's fine. I won't insult you. That shit tastes slow churned. I won't insult you with a really nasty Wisconsin accent because I'll just butcher it and make you sound worse than you already sound, which is hard to do, but I can do it, I'm sure. Now, they go into their son's

room, Chris, 14 years old, in the morning and he is gone. Yeah. Just gone. Just missing. Vanished. They call the cops because they don't know where he is. This isn't like Chris.

He's not a flighty kid. He's not a runaway. And he's 14. He's 14, but he's not like a troubled 14-year-old who like, oh, yeah, you got to put in juvie a couple times. He could be in the next town doing heroin by now. You never know. It's not that. He's just a kid who would not go out and be gone like that.

So they call the police when the police arrive. It's, you know, they fulfill these parents worse nightmare by saying that there are signs of an abduction. It's a clear, clear cut case of that. The bedroom window screen, you know, the screen on the window had been sliced open. There were muddy footprints all over the carpet. Footprints like shoe imprints outside in the mud, outside the window. And a patio door was unlocked, which they always locked at night. So somebody went out the patio, in a window, out the patio.

And there's mud inside, which indicates he did not go outside and then come the fuck back inside. Yeah, he went in the window, muddy feet and all, and then marched himself out of the patio, apparently with Chris. Yeah. That's the thing here. Local authorities here, obviously this is a big deal to small town. They checked all the clowns first, obviously, to see where they were. And once they all had alibis, they said, okay, now we at least know he wasn't killed by a

clown, which is the first thing everyone thinks, obviously, when a kid goes missing here. But it's a big deal. I checked the trapeze guys. They're the ones that are so easy to get in and out of things. That's true. An elephant could have eaten him. We have no idea. But anyway, they search for him.

They search for him. Almost a week goes by. Six days goes by. Oh, my God. Of searching. As a parent? As a parent. You've got to be losing your fucking mind.

Especially because you went to bed. He was in his room. Your house is locked up. Everything's secure. And then you get up and your kid room. Your house is locked up. Everything's secure. And then you get up and your kid's gone and he's just gone. That's insane. This isn't even like he went out and never came home. Or even that has a some, I'm not saying it's better.

Right. But I feel like it's better. Right. I mean, there's inside your body, you're going, at least you know somewhere that he went. You're scared. Every time your kid leaves the house, I have a 15 year old daughter. Every time she's going anywhere, it scares the shit out of me. She goes on a

school field trip, I worry about the bus flipping over. We all do this, you know what I mean? You do this shit, but like once they're in... That's how I am, man. I have a lot of anxiety. I worry about everything. You don't trust a school bus mechanic? No, I worry about everything. You have no idea.

I'm a complete disaster inside. It's a complete mess. This is just holding it together as just a thin front for you people. Okay. That's all it is. You wouldn't like me. You know what a disaster I was. So anyway, they're looking for this kid.

Once you put the kid in his bed, that's it. They're secure. They're good now. Check on them later on or whatever. It's the safest place they can be. They're in my bed, that's it. They're secure. They're good now. Check on them later on or whatever. It's the safest place they can be. They're in my home, in bed, with me. This is perfect. This is where you want them.

It's the safest place in the world, except for this poor Chris Steiner, young man here, who was found six days later dead. Of course. Draped over a partially submerged tree on the edge of a river sandbar. Yeah. That's where they find him, just kind of, you know, the current took him onto a tree type of thing. So they're obviously— The water put in there.

Yeah, they're obviously— Holy shit. Yeah, he's like kind of half on the log, half over. So they're obviously thinking that looks, you know, suspicious. Somebody breaks in, this kid's, you know, drowned in here. thinking that looks suspicious. Somebody breaks in. This kid's drowned in here.

They do an autopsy. Shows no traumatic injuries on his body, which is no big contusions or a bashed, broken skull or anything like that. Either way, though, they were convinced, obviously, foul play is involved here because how else would this happen? Someone came in and took him. I don't think they took him and then just took him out for a burger, let him go, and then he just fell in a river on the way home. Like, I doubt that's the cause here. So it's a crazy thing here.

No traumatic injuries. The cause of death is drowning, but it's officially listed as undetermined. And we'll get into exactly what that is here. Cause of death. Cause and manner of death are different things. And this is kind of confusing, and it confused me for a while before we started doing these podcasts about this cause of death. There's a cause and manner of death are different things. And this is kind of confusing. And it confused me for a while before we started doing these podcasts about this sort of thing. Cause of death is generally lack of oxygen.

Exactly. The manner of not having the oxygen is drowning. Exactly. What is it? Exactly. If you if you strangle someone, the cause of death is obviously oxygen deprivation, and that's the thing. The manner of death is actually what it is. Well, it's four categories.

Natural, accident, suicide, homicide. Holy shit. So that's it. So yeah, natural, accident, suicide, homicide. Those are your four. That's your big four. That's your big four right there. So they rule this undetermined.

So this is neither of them. They don't know what the hell happened because there's no evidence of anything. They figure he was killed, but there's no physical evidence of it. So it is what it is. It goes unsolved. Drowned kid, undetermined. They have no idea where to look. There's no physical evidence.

They have muddy footprints. What are they going to do? Go around Cinderella at everybody's foot and see if the muddy footprint fits into 12,000 people in the town? It's kind of difficult. Or 10,000, how many were there at that time? That's the Steiners. They've lost their son. They have no idea why, how it happened.

Neither do the medical examiners. Neither does anybody. It's just undetermined. With that, that was 1994, 4th of July. In 1995, the Phillips family moves to Baraboo. They come in. The lore of the circus was too much for them. They have a 13-year-old son named Thad.

Okay. Okay. A nice 13-year-old kid. It's a nice family. On July 29th, 1995, Thad Phillips wakes up in the middle of the night. He fell asleep on the living room couch watching TV, which, you know, it's summer. Summer vacation. It happens.

It happens. You watch some – yeah. I can't tell you how many times it's summer vacation. I fell asleep on the couch watching TV because you are allowed to stay up late and watch TV or your parents are asleep and you can do it because you don't have to get up for school in the morning. I'm 36. I still do it.

Oh, it's fantastic. It's the best. It's a great feeling. It's so good. It's a great feeling. It is a great feeling, but normally you want to be woken up by a loved one that takes you to a bed or just says, get your ass up. You're on the couch or something like that.

Instead, he feels himself. He wakes up by being picked up from the couch and carried through the house. He thinks it's one of his parents. Yeah. This episode of Small Town Murder is brought to you by Time Suck Podcast. What is Time Suck? Time Suck is an experiment in curiosity. It's interesting topics enthusiastically and

irreverently explored by Dan Cummins. It's hilarious. You know our buddy Dan Cummins way back from the Trevor Burbick episode of Crime and Sports. Hilarious guy. Great, great podcast. He's a great friend of ours. Host Dan Cummins has been described by Splitsider.com as a one-man history-wrecking crew who will, even

after the dust settles, leave you with some facts and tales that will help you look halfway smart at a lot of cocktail parties and bar hangouts. The point of Time Suck is to actually enjoy learning something new each week. Education doesn't have to be boring. It can be fun, and it can be hysterical. And it is on Time Suck. And if you guys are leery still, you need a guide through Time Suck, why don't you go back to, I believe, episode 31 of Time Suck.

It's on Caligula, and you'll hear a couple of familiar voices joining Dan on that show. Yes, Jimmy and myself are both on that show, so we can guide you in. And then from then on, you'll want to go off on your own and do all the sucking you can suck. Anything interesting qualifies as a Time Suck topic. Listeners' favorites so far include Scientology, Jeffrey Dahmer, Lost City of Atlantis, North Korea, the Jonestown Massacre, the Dark Web, and Vlad the Impaler. He digs deep on each topic and then fills it in with his own brand of comedy. He has inside jokes.

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Look for a link to Time Suck in our episode description. He thinks it's one of his parents just taking him to bed. You know what I mean? Because that's probably a normal thing. Instead, he's taken outside. And he gets squirted on the face with a flower. They squirt, they conk their nose and run away. And he's like, what the hell happened?

No, instead, he wishes that happened. That would be a better outcome for poor Thad here. So Thad here he uh he's put down outside uh he turns to this person thad thinking hopefully this is a family member of some kind and it's not it is a 17 year old uh young man named joe clark from baraboo here uh he didn't recognize him but he assumed that he knew the family considering he was in his house picking him up off the couch. So he was like, OK, what's going on?

Yeah, he was like, what's up, dude? What's happening? So Joe Clark tells Thad to run with him. He says, run with me right now. You need to run with me. So this kid's in the middle of the night, got taken outside. He's like, well, OK. And he just starts running with this kid.

He's like, all right, sure. And he's a few years older than him. So I't know if it just i don't know i can't imagine just that's a weird feeling you're up in the middle of the night who knows how much you know sense anybody has when you're woken up in the middle of the night uh so he doesn't think anything is awry until they run for about a mile which jesus that's a long way to goddamn run half being woken up right now run a mile at some you'd be like, where the fuck is going on? Is this far enough? Whatever was in the house is we're safe from now.

We've run a seventh across town, bro. This is crazy. This is a lot. This is a huge, this is a lot. Thad realizes that things might not be going the way he would like them to go. This Joe Clark introduces himself by his first name. Says, hi, I'm Joe. And Thad's like, OK, great.

Why am I at a strange house in the middle of the night? This is a little weird. He then, Joe Clark, then forces Thad up the stairs, which is also a bad sign. In every one of these cases we've done, when someone forces someone upstairs, it's never a good thing. They're not coming down. A lot of times they're not coming down. He throws poor Thad on a bed, which is just disgusting. Apparently a soiled, gross bed.

Again, this has happened. This is terrible. How many times has that happened so far since we've been doing the show? Never a good sign. Then bad things happen. Oh, boy. Okay, to now, everything he's done so far is right neighborly compared to this shit that's going on now. Kidnapping and—

Right neighborly. Right neighborly, let's just say's going on now kidnapping and right neighbor right neighborly let's just say it is just a circus town uh demeanor it's fine uh here though this is not great what he does after he tosses him on the bed is he grabs his leg grabs thad's leg and starts twisting his ankle until it snaps oh my, my God. Until it snaps. What the fuck? And the bone splinters. That's how hard he twisted his ankle. And in doing one thing, he like... Slowly.

Yeah, he did it that way. Okay. Horrible. Now, imagine the pain, number one. Unbelievable. And just the sadistic nature of this. And this is his intro. This is his hello.

Hey, I'm Tom. Or I'm Joe. I'm joe and then let me snap your broken ankle this is crazy bro i just ran a mile my hammy is burning in the first place yeah i wasn't going anywhere to begin with jesus christ here uh instead this poor kid is on here uh he ends up he's trying to fight yeah clark here thad's trying to fight clark he gets himself free from clark somehow and limps his way downstairs. Oh, my God. After he got free somehow.

I think Clark fell down, tripped over something. Ends up Clark, though, catches up to him, unfortunately, as he was about to try to get to the door and throws him onto a couch. Super pissed off now. Of course. Joe is, obviously, because now he's angry. How dare you run away while I try to snap your leg in half? Yeah.

You've got one foot and you're outrunning me. Not even try to snap your leg in half after I snap your ankle at a turn of it. I legitimately did. Yeah. He ends up taking Thad's leg and pushes it upward toward his head until his thigh snapped. What? That's how he did this. He pushed his leg.

He's crushing the kid. Basically crushes his leg, pushes it up until his thigh breaks because it doesn't go that way. Yeah. Which is, I don't even know, you have to want that. You know what I mean? That's not easy. It's the toughest bone in the body. That's not easy to do.

No. None of this is easy to do. You have to, A, have the callous disregard for anybody, the lack of empathy, lack of anything. The willingness to do it. And then on top of that, the actual physical want to do this shit has got to be really present in you big time for this to be going on.

This continues into the night. What he does here is super fucking weird, too. This is what he likes to do. This is what he gets off on, this Joe Clark kid here. He's only 17 years old, too, and he's already developed this sort of sickness. Imagine if this kid goes until he's 35 and doesn't get caught for anything. Holy shit, you're going to have Ted Bundy on your hands

or Jeffrey Dahmer, more likely. In the same fucking state. In the same state. He would have moved to Milwaukee, got a job making chocolate, and then the rest is history. Infectionary fucking madman. Oh, Jesus Christ.

So anyway, here it is. What he'll do, Joe Clark, is he dresses his wounds. He made casts for him out of socks and ace bandages. Jesus. So this is what he would do. He would make like a rudimentary cast out of socks and ace bandages. How soiled are those socks?

Oh, God. He's been tugging into them for months. Oh, you know he has. Oh, God. And the weird shit he's tugging to. That's where the hardness for the cast comes from oh man this is a piece of shit i'm telling you man yeah this guy's this guy's a serious piece of shit here uh so he ends up clark ends up leaving him alone on the bed and he goes out he goes out joe clark just goes out he's like well he's pretty fucked up i broke both both his legs. It's the other leg now.

It's the other leg. I broke his legs. He's got a thigh and an ankle. He's fine. I'm going to get out of here. I have lots of stuff to do, so I'm going to take off here. Haven't you seen Misery, fucko? Yeah.

Yeah, this is. They figure it out. You crush legs with typewriters. They figure it out. He leaves. He comes back. The whole deal. It's absolutely insane.

So he, Thad, drags yeah down the stairs with two broken legs makes it into the kitchen uh when he gets to the kitchen uh he hears clark and a girl arrive so he's like oh shit and he doesn't know they didn't know he was in the next room so he didn't know other two he didn't know what to do here uh so but and very very quickly the girl leaves and so now he's like oh shit yeah clark then finds phillips laying lying down on the kitchen floor and drags him upstairs and he makes him pay for it he again just brutalizes him uh threatens to kill him the whole deal i mean he's he just he's taking his raging on him completely uh thad can't do anything about it he just he basically hopes that joe will go to sleep.

This is over the course of a day. He's like, I hope he goes to sleep and wakes up and just lets me go. That's what he's thinking. Maybe, I don't know, maybe he's having a bad day. Maybe that's what will happen. But what ends up happening is as soon as Joe is awoken the next morning, he comes in and begins twisting his ankles and legs again, breaking every bone he can possibly break.

What a dick. Feet, legs, tibia, fibula, you name it. He's breaking this guy's legs into horrible pieces, and he keeps doing this over and over again, and he'll make a rudimentary cast and act like he's breaking it again. God, Jesus. That's what he gets off on. He's like, oh, now it's fixed again.

Now I can break it again. And it's insane. Thad continues to fight back because it's horrific. Clark throws a pillow at him and tells him that if he doesn't keep quiet and stop fighting, he's going to break his back and break his neck. So Thad somehow buries his face in a pillow

and doesn't make any more noise or doesn't fight back or do anything. While this guy's breaking his bones. And also, too, he'd take breaks like we had a couple weeks ago or last week, the guy with the Coke and chips. He'll take breaks during it and have conversations with him. It's like, oh, so yeah, we're on break now. This is terrible.

This is fine. I punched out for my 15. It's all good. Let's have a conversation. Thad would try to talk to him to, you know, he said maybe if he sees me as a human, he'll stop hurting me. You know, which is smart for a 13-year-old kid, honestly, because that's kind of what they tell people who are kidnapped like that. Try to humanize yourself to people and never underestimate the will of a survivor.

That's what I mean. Yeah. This kid is this kid's tough and he's trying hard. He would ask him, like, you know, why is he why are you doing this? You'd say, have you ever done this before? When he asked him about that, Joe Clark tells him about something he'd done before. Oh, no. He tells him about a young man named Chris Steiner from last year.

We remember him on the riverbank. And also another boy that he tortured. Oh, shit. So he's told him about Chris Steiner that he killed. He said, I killed this kid. And then he said he tortured this other boy that we don't know his name at the moment here. And he tells him he just likes hearing. He has a kind of a fetish about hearing bones break.

God, Jesus. That's what he tells me. He's like, I just like really hearing bones break. And I also he said he also had an obsession with, quote, fixing them afterwards. You're not fixing shit. You're wrapping it in a sock and an ace bandage and then making it worse. You fucking asshole. It's just so he can think that he's breaking it, you know, breaking the bones again.

And he would do it again. He'd do it every time he'd load up his feet in the socks. And they said they were very clean socks, too. I don't know if he went out and bought a package of socks for this because, oh, I'm a doctor now, so it's all got to be real medically clean or what. I'm not sure. But he would continue to do it. He'd jump up and down on his feet and do shit like that, trying to break his feet. It was insane.

Also, he'd play mind games with him. On top, not enough that he's physically torturing him. This is horrific. This is misery times 100. This is absolutely insane here. that he's physically torturing him. This is horrific. This is misery times a hundred. This is absolutely insane here. And he's so young. Yeah, at least Jimmy Khan's kind of an asshole. You know what I mean? Whatever. Not the character. Actually, Jimmy

Khan's kind of an asshole. So you could see somebody wanting to torture him. But this is a whole different deal. I know the book was first and the book is really good, Jimmy. You should read it. I know you haven't. Let's go on. So Thad, he begs to call his parents, obviously. He's like, let me call my parents and tell them I'm alive. They're going to be really worried because he's a nice kid.

So Joe handed him a phone. So here you go. Go ahead and call your parents. So Thad felt great about that, obviously. And then when he went to dial, the phone's not connected. He would do shit like that to him. What an asshole. Yeah, just say no.

Don't hand the kid. It's insane. At one point, Thad hears a phone ring in the kitchen, and it turns out that it was Joe's girlfriend calling him about a date that they had going on for that night. He says, there's a phone in there. If I ever get to that phone, I can do

this. That's where I'm calling, yeah. So Joe had to go for his date. Before he went for his date, though, let me just make sure to torture this kid some more. Put this kid in some pain. So he did that. So he doesn't leave before I come back. Thumped him up, worked his legs again, jumped up and down on his feet, that sort of thing. His kneecaps were literally backwards.

Oh, my God. Backwards. Jesus. That's how bad he did this. His ankles, This is horrible. There was no bone or tendon. It was just hanging from skin. His foot and his ankle were hanging off of his leg with twisted skin.

Oh, my God. That's the type of injuries we're talking about here. When you turn the bread. Yeah, this is worse than misery. This is absolutely horrific here. So anyway, Joe leaves him upstairs in the second floor bedroom. He goes out on his date. Thad hears the door close, so he throws himself off the bed and drags himself to the stairs.

With his hands. With his hands. Now, before he had a little use of his legs where he could sort of lean here and there. Wibble wobble. Here he has no use of his legs. So what he can do is he can either stay up there or throw himself down the stairs and hope to not kill himself. I mean.

That's all you can do. That's all you got. Just roll down the stairs and I'm sure your legs are going to be hitting things and that's not going to feel great either. He's not like he's giving him ibuprofen or anything like that or painkillers. He can slide like a penguin. Yeah, I don't know how he would get over that. That's true.

He could do even then. He just decides. And then just face first it? I got to do this. He hits the bottom of the stairs. He passes out from the pain at the bottom of the stairs. He wakes up, drags himself a little more, passes out, drags himself more, passes out. He's like waking up and dragging himself and passing out.

The will of this kid. It's unbelievable. Unbelievable. This kid can do anything he wants to do in this world if he gets out of this situation. It's like a nom survivor. Yeah. Again, here, he gets into the the living room and he hears the front door open oh fuck so he's like shit he pulls himself behind a couch and he can hear joe's girlfriend now because he can tell it's his girlfriend by what they're saying to each other uh he didn't know whether to yell out and then he's like do i yell out or if i yell out yeah is he gonna end up doing this

to her too right and on top of that, what if she's into this? What if she's like, oh, cool, I'll help you torture this kid. He doesn't know what the fuck to do. So he just still freezes up, which I don't blame him, honestly. I don't know if I would have thrown myself down the stairs to begin with. I don't even know. You have to have some sort of real will inside to keep going on. She leaves after a little while.

So this goes on for a little while. She's in there hanging out. They're talking, blah, blah, blah. She leaves, and Joe finds him. Clark finds him. And, yeah, they say that it's pretty much a miracle that his legs and feet weren't just completely separated from his body after what he was doing here. His legs were swollen to the diameter of basketballs. And he would just do, at least once an hour

they said he would come in and work them over. I am sick to my stomach. It's hard. He would dress the wounds and then do it again. So it's absolutely nuts. By the next morning all these blood vessels are broken during these torture. He has huge internal bleeding fat. He has given

him no food or drink. So he's severely dehydrated, and blood is pooling up in his legs. He's basically internally bleeding to death. This is a nightmare. This is as horrible a thing as anything we've encountered so far. And we've done some shit. And we've done some bad shit. The Tahoe guy, the herb-cotting, that was a nightmare. That guy in Hawkins, Texas guy.

There's been some bad people. I'm so sick right now. It's horrible. So it came to the point while he would be beating him, Thad would just say things to get him to stop for 10 seconds. He would be like, I hear your girlfriend outside. So Joe would go look through the window and then he would be super pissed when no one was there and come to beat him worse. But he said it just he needed the break. It didn't matter.

He knew he was going to get it worse, but to get that 10 seconds off, he said he needed it to remind himself that he was alive. He said it's horrible. So he goes out again with his girlfriend that night. This time he locks that up in a closet. It's July upstairs in a closet. Super hot, super sticky, Wisconsin summer night. He's dehydrated as shit, too, and he can't do anything.

So he starts looking around this closet for something to break the door down with, something. He just wants to get out of there and get to the phone, obviously. He finds an electric guitar, and he starts bashing the door down with this electric guitar. He bashes the door, bashes himself out of this closet. Yeah. And he starts bashing the door down. Good. With this electric guitar. He bashes the door, bashes himself out of this closet. Incredible. The will of this kid. Bashes himself out of the closet. Problem is, now

he's at the stairs again. What do you do here? These goddamn stairs. So he just says, shit. I mean, he basically didn't know what to do because he said if I go down the stairs and I pass out and do this and he comes home and finds me again down there he's probably going to kill me. But if I stay up here he's probably going to kill me.

He's told me about some kid he killed. I don't think he's just going to let me go here at this point with all this torture. First of all where the fuck are Joe's parents? That's another question I have. Where the fuck are they? They might have gone out of town for three days or something. It's kid 17. I'm physically ill right now. Tell me or something. This kid's 17. I'm physically ill right now.

Tell me about it. Oh, God. Yeah. This is, you know, it was 4 o'clock in the morning I was going over this shit just going, Jesus Christ, man. This is horrific. I'm seriously going to be sick. I'm not even lying to you right now.

It's horrible, man. I'm not saying that for, like, effect. It's horrible. I'm legitimately going to be sick. Make sure your windows are locked at home. For real. That's all. I don't even know what to say here.

So he throws himself down the stairs he awakens again uh he's you know passes out when he gets there but he wakes up drags himself toward the kitchen made it this time sees the phone yeah luckily lucky for thad this phone back then this is not a cordless phone you know on a thing this is a house phone with a cord you know what i mean and a cord connecting the phone to the actual, the receiver to the unit itself. Had a long dangling cord like a lot of people's kitchen phones have. Nice, so you can wander around.

So you can pull it down also if you're on the floor and you have broken legs and you can't get up. So he can reach the cord. Right. Long dangling cord yanks the phone receiver down. Atta boy. Luckily for him, it's also one of those, because now you have two different kinds of phones.

You have the phones with the numbers on the unit and the phone with the numbers on the receiver itself. Luckily for him, numbers on the receiver. Thank God it's not a rotary. Yeah, oh God, can you imagine that? He would have passed out three, four times by the time he got three numbers out. If he got through it, that rotary phone would be his clowns. He would fucking hate that phone. Every time he hears the noise.

So this kid, he calls. calls 9-1-1 thank god um they thought and they admit it later on sheriff's department thought it was a prank really they're like horseshit it's a small town right they don't how many you know i mean honestly here abducted tortured mangled really they probably treated that that uh runaway elephant like that too too. Yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, there's an elephant. Sure there is. That was like, wait. Then they went, hold on a sec. Call over there.

How many elephants you got left? Oh, shit. They're supposed to have two. Okay, let's get over there. This, though, they think it's a joke. Unbelievable. Obviously, a child's voice, a kid, 13 years old teenager, which is prime. Clearly in pain.

Prime, but prime prank call time also. This is also the time of the jerky boys yeah and shit like that don't forget damn it this is prime prank call time right here this is everyone on earth is running go on exactly so they're like yeah okay sure you've been abducted and tortured and kept uh you know in a closet for days without food or water and your bones are hanging off of you sure uh but But they show up anyway. Good. Let's check it out anyway. They find out he's not bullshit fucking around at all here.

These three treated at the hospital that they take him for his horrific, horrific wounds that we'll get into in a minute here. Yeah. Unbelievable. The police obviously want to talk to this kid and find out who the hell did this to you. What's the deal? Also, you know, any other information you have?

And he says, you know what, guys? Dad says, actually, you ever heard of Chris Steiner? He told me about a kid, I remember his name, named Chris Steiner, that he said he killed and tortured. He said, also, there's another boy, but he could not remember his name. So somewhere there's an unsolved, because they never find out this other boy's name.

Somewhere there's a boy who was at least tortured, possibly killed, that we've never connected to Joe Clark because this poor kid, Thad, can't remember this guy's name. And Joe isn't talking about it. No. Or Joe was just saying that to scare him, but he doesn't need to. He just told him there is a dead

kid and that's for real. And that's for real. And then he tells the police and the police are like, ah, yeah. We're aware of that. Even Thad can tell that he struck a nerve when he says that name. They're like, oh, shit. Yeah. Wow. And they're like, hey, Thad, do you know where any keys for a RAV4 are at?

Anything like that? You got that anywhere? Is that possible? You didn't find one of those little key fob things on the floor somewhere next to a dresser, did you? Because if you did, we really got to sit down and have a talk. We may have another case to talk to you about that. I'm telling you.

Yeah, you never know. Where was Clark, man? Where was he? Well, we'll find out where he was. It turns out Thad had been held captive for 43 hours. My God. 43 hours of constant torture. Just begging in that entire 43 hours for 10 seconds of breaks.

That's it. Of constant, constant torture. Just begging in that entire 43 hours for 10 seconds of breaks. That's it. Of constant, constant torture. And then when you don't have constant torture, you're trying to get out scared shitless, throwing yourself downstairs, passing out from the pain. He had horrible, horrible fractures to basically every bit of his legs. His legs were completely destroyed. He required a ton of surgeries to fix all this. This kid is so much tougher than me.

Oh, my God. Insane. Thirteen? Fourteen. Thirteen he was at this time. Thirteen. What a little badass. For years he had surgeries, too. It wasn't like, oh, we fixed it. It was like, well, in the next round of surgeries, we'll try to straighten this part out. So many rods and pins. So bad here. Permanent limp, obviously. Can't walk right to this day.

Soon afterward, the police arrest Clark, thankfully, on this whole thing. Now, they want to know about Steiner's body because they did an autopsy and found no abrasions. Well, they don't do x-rays in an autopsy. What they do is they check for things. They might check the skull, things like that, but they don't x-ray the entire body

and so they have to exhume Chris Steiner, which is terrible for the parents. But at that point, you'd be like, wait, wait, wait, this might catch somebody. Yeah, dig him up and check him out because I want this asshole put away. I'm going to relive all that pain, but at least there may be some closure at the end. Exactly. They find out from the exam there was no long bone x-rays taken. They took x-rays of the skull and of the hands for defensive wounds, but they didn't

take any of the forearms, the lower appendages, long bone x-rays of the skull and of the hands for defensive wounds, but they didn't take any of the forearms. The lower appendages. Long bone x-rays, they called them. So they check on that. We'll get to that in a second here. A notebook also was found in Joe Clark's bedroom with underneath each, he had headings. Wow. Three different headings.

One was get to now. One was can't or can wait. And one was leg thing. Jesus. That's what he said. Get to now. Can wait. Leg.

So he had like, this is shit I need. Priority this. I can put that off until tomorrow. And these are people with shit I'm going to rip their legs apart. Underneath each heading were the names of local young boys. What? So he was not only just, he wasn't finding people and just going and checking a window and then climbing and seeing if there was a teenage boy.

He was stalking. He had them planned out and had their names on a list of people he was going to go down and do this with. They did the x-rays for Chris Steiner. Turns out his x-rays were basically identical to Thad's and his legs. Identical wounds. Wow. Absolutely identical.

Almost every bone was broken in the exact same spot. Holy shit. Exact same spot. This is what he's into, this asshole. Unreal. So on September 7th, 1995, the state files a criminal complaint against Joe Clark, obviously. It's eight crimes. This is for Thad here.

Obviously, it's eight crimes for this is for Thad here. Eight crimes, allegations that he kidnapped, you know, kidnapped Thad, stomped on his legs, twisted his ankles, the whole deal. Kept him locked in the closet. None of this looks good in court here. In black and white. In black and white. Yeah, it looks really bad when it says, quote, this is from court documents, quote, threatened and suffocated him and kept him imprisoned in a locked closet without food or days until he was able to escape and call for help. That sounds bad in court. There's no one wants that read about them.

No. Anywhere. Eventually, Clark, because the God, the evidence is overwhelming. He was in his house. Yeah. I mean, the kid. He can describe everything. He's got a book that says leg thing and his name under it.

Pretty good. Pretty sure that this is what happened here. That's a fascinating way to file that kid away. Leg thing. Leg thing. That's my leg thing. My leg thing. That's what I got out of it, too.

Thing. What a weird thing to write. That's my thing. Yeah. The leg thing that I do. The leg thing. Like, it's like, yeah, that basketball thing. Like, we play horse in the driveway.

Like, what are you talking about? Leg thing. Oh, Jesus. Absolutely not. That thing I tug to. That leg thing like it's like yeah that basketball thing like we play horse in the driveway like what are you talking about like oh jesus absolutely that thing i tugged to that leg thing that's so creepy wow uh he eventually clark eventually enters a couple of no contest pleas and a couple mixed with pleas of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect uh to the one that his his charges are one count of attempted first degree intentional homicide. Yeah. Obviously. Yeah.

One count of causing great bodily harm to a child. One count of mayhem. Yeah. One count of causing mental harm to a child and one count of child enticement. Mayhem is a fucking amazing, amazing charge. Every time anybody's charged with that, I'm like, you're a real piece of shit. We have kind of a court definition of it, too, because he argues about it later on.

Yeah. The jury here, unsurprisingly, finds that Joe Clark is definitely mentally responsible at the time of his offenses, and they find him... Because he went out with his fucking girlfriend and then came right the hell home to do the same thing? Yeah, he's probably mentally responsible.

He had a lot of plates spinning. I mean, he did. He had a girlfriend. He should have been in the fucking circus. Thank you. Thank you. He's so good at plates spinning. He's so good at plates spinning, and we'll talk about something else in a second, too.

But, yeah, he finds him mentally responsible. He is found guilty. Yeah. After the court sentences him, which we'll get into here in a second, the court sentences him here to a total of 100 years imprisonment. Holy shit. For just this one.

He gets 100 years. Yeah. 100 years just for Thad. Holy shit. Not just for Thad. 100 years for only that case. For only that case. Great. He also, later on though, and we'll get into this on appeal, he files a plea withdrawal motion challenging the factual basis for his convictions on the attempted homicide, mayhem, and mental harm charges.

Wow. They deny the motion for him to withdraw, so now he has to appeal on those bases. It's ridiculous. October. I wasn't causing mayhem. Then what the fuck were you doing? What do you call that exactly? What would you call that?

That is mayhem. So very definition. Outside of Saturday for a normal clown, I don't know what anyone would call that. It's ridiculous. Tommy Lee should remove that tattoo and you should strictly only have that tattoo. I agree. So October 1997, Joe Clark is taken to civil court over this. He is ordered to pay damages to Thad of $21 million in damages.

Now, obviously, he's, you know. He's never paying. He's in prison. Unless his parents are a wringling person, then they're never going to see $21 million. That's the thing, yeah. Thad testified to. I mean, that's going to up that amount if you get the kid on the stand talking about how he enjoyed breaking my legs and torturing me and putting me in pain. Unbelievable here. Yeah, it's wild.

The one of the lawyers said, quote, that has been traumatized by this and he will never forget what happened. Of course. However, he literally saved himself. He broke through the closet door, dragged himself to a phone and dialed 911. But for him, the facts in this case would never have surfaced. Yeah. Exactly. He would have just disappeared somewhere. They would have found him on a riverbank somewhere.

And the dude would have been finding another kid. That's what I mean. He had three lists. I'm sure he did the same thing to the other kid. He probably took him home. Chris Steiner, he probably took him home and did this to him here. They also charge him to pay, order him to pay $31,566 in medical damages and the other two, the $21 million or $6 million in compensatory damages and $15 million in punitive damages. So, yeah, he's serving at least a 40-year sentence out of the 100 years, but he may make money off the case, the judge said.

Really? Yeah, the judge whose name is Virginia Woolf, actually, which cracks me the fuck up. Yeah. The judge's name is Virginia Woolf. She said, given the sensational nature of this case, it is entirely possible that the defendant can reap some financial gain through media coverage in the future. Okay. So in case he gets out and something happens and he makes a dime off of this, you're giving

it to this guy. Victim's fund. Good. Yeah. Because this guy fucking deserves it. This isn't like even like his parents or anything else. This is actually him. Yeah. Like he he's limping every day.

He deserves some cash. There's no jog in this kid's future. Shit. No shit. No. What he did here. Clark files motions right around the same time for a new trial for the fad thing. And and his lawyer asked the judge to throw out the convictions of the ones we talked about

at Mayhem Attempted Homicide. And also, he is to stand trial in the next month on the death of Christian Steiner, the 14-year-old found in the river that we know about here, in court for the Steiner case here. He pled not guilty. The exhumation of the body and the x-rays and the identical wounds, that doesn't bode well for him. It doesn't bode well for a guy that's already

convicted of one that's exactly the same. And the fact that there's a witness saying, he told me he killed him. As he was doing the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. It's ridiculous. Clark's parents try to testify. Fuck them. They do testify.

Yeah, fuck you guys. Watch your goddamn kids. Apparently it wasn't at his house because I don't know how this ended up happening, but it had to be at a different house or something because his parents testify that their son was home asleep in his room on the night of the Chris Steiner killing. So I don't know that night if he took Chris Steiner back to his house to snap his legs. Boy, they got a hell of a memory. Or if he took him right to the, yeah, that's what I mean. You know what I mean?

A year before that. He was definitely in his bed. It was fucking eight years ago. But it was the 4th of July. Yeah. So that means, oh, I remember. We all watched fireworks. We did this.

We went home. He was in his room. You know who else? I could see that. I could see that. Their kid was asleep in their bed. Exactly. You know what I mean?

Fuck you. No, no. But I mean, I could see them trying to. Yeah, yeah. Fuck that. I could see them trying to, you know, say, no, we remember. But it doesn't matter because a bunch of other witnesses, A, claim that his parents were very heavy sleepers because they were drinkers. And also that Clark regularly snuck out of the house through the upstairs window.

That was normal. His friends testified. A bunch of people, the neighbors testified. Ridiculous. Also damning testimony here a former juvenile detention inmate who was in there with clark said clark admitted to her that he killed a boy and placed his body over a tree in the river wow that's pretty specific damning you had that with broken bones and this and that you you know you know who knows where that body was found the police and somebody else yes someone

else just someone possibly you maybe you. Possibly you. Maybe you, because you're the only one telling people about it. You just blurted out exactly how it happened. No one else is telling people details of that nature.

So, you know, it's possible. I hate him. I hate this son of a bitch. I legitimately hate him. I'm telling you here. I have a theory here in a second here.

Now, on November 7th, 1997, he is found guilty of intentional homicide and he is sentenced to life in prison plus 50 years. Good. Just in case. We're going to keep your insane, twisted ass in jail. For a long time. Clark maintains his innocence in the Chris Steiner murder to the end of time.

He's still sitting in jail in 2017 going, I don't know what happened to that kid. Wasn't me. That's all I know. Now, both of these things happened in July. Yeah. Okay. This asshole was bored. Yeah.

This son of a bitch was fucking bored. He's got a problem with July. Which pisses me off because it's not like it's 1935. He wasn't on a farm in the middle of the fucking depression. He had Sega Genesis for Christ's sake. Goddamn right. If you have Sonic the fucking cock-sucking hedgehog, you have no excuse to murder from boredom. I'm sorry.

And if he would have been just patient for a few more months, NBA Live 95 was about to come out. Unbelievable. And you were going to lose your mind. NHL 93 was a top-notch game, the hockey game. It was really great. But this asshole, no. If you have Sega Genesis, boredom is not an excuse to murder anybody. By the way, on that sentence, too, he will have to serve 70 of the 110 year sentence he received.

Before parole. For Steiner, before he's eligible for parole. Boom. Because 110 years will be consecutive with the 100 year sentence he served before that. He's going to be 87, 88. Well, that's with that. So he's pretty much just never be eligible for parole. Good night.

He's not eligible for parole until 25 years of that conviction. So he's eligible for parole in 95 years. Unbelievable. From 1997 when he was 20 years old. That sleep well fucker. So if he lives to be 115 years old, he can walk right out of that prison, and I hope somebody knocks him over and snaps his fucking ankles. Won't even need to. Just knock him over.

They'll break on the way down. Unbelievable here. Wow. Yeah. So he says during the sentencing on the Steiner thing, Clark says, I have done nothing wrong. That's what he says to the judge in this case. So there you go. Nothing wrong.

We got 95 years to think about it. Enjoy that Nothing wrong. You fuck face. Enjoy dickhead. So September 3rd, 1998 is the appeal of the Phillips case of Thad. Yeah. He just says again, he tried to withdraw his plea. He says there's no attempted murder of that and no mayhem. He says this is in the court documents. This is amazing. When there's ridiculous shit in court documents, I love it. It says, quote, Clark claims that causing multiple fractures to another person's legs does not constitute mayhem unless the victim suffers permanent damage as a result. His argument raises the question of the proper statutory interpretation of the term, quote, mutilates. What? That's what we're arguing in this. Holy hell. The statutory interpretation of mutilate.

Oh, my Christ. So it says in the statute here that mayhem is committed by people with, quote, malicious intent to maim or disfigure who shall cut out or maim the tongue, put out or destroy an eye, cut out or tear off an ear, cut, slit or mutilate the nose, lip or cut or disable a limb to a member of another or member of another person. That's exactly what they just said. That's exactly what they just said.

Cut or disable a limb. You disabled two, sir. He's saying that he's trying to say, yeah, but they put them back together. He has a limp, but he still has legs is what he's trying to say. He still qualifies for a fucking handicap placard, you dick. That's what I mean. So the court here says in their decision, an injury to a limb which results in permanent loss or function would have altered appearance could constitute mutilation without the meaning within the meaning of the statute

we do not however see anything in either in either the historical notion of mayhem or its current placement in the statutory scheme which would require the victim's disablement or disfigurement to be permanent so if you fuck somebody up that's mayhem disfigurement to be permanent. So if you fuck somebody up, that's mayhem. It doesn't have to be permanent. You can't be breaking shit. So yeah, they said the victim was deprived of his legs when he fractured his shit, so that's mayhem. Tough shit.

You get half a loaf of bread for feet, you fucker. That's crazy. That's insane. I can't even fathom that. And dragging himself downstairs, throwing himself downstairs. Physically sick. Also, they say it's reasonable to infer that Clark knew these injuries would disable him from escaping. And also, too, he threatened to paralyze him if he tried to leave the house.

He said he was going to break his back and neck. So he finds that it's not erroneous, they say, basically, to get him on mayhem. And also, too, he says not attempted homicide. He wasn't trying to kill him. He says. And also, too, he says not attempted homicide. He wasn't trying to kill him. You know, he says he didn't intend to kill anybody. What are you talking about here? The judge says, quote, the blood which pooled in the victim's broken legs was life-threatening. The pillow which Clark held over the victim's face could have suffocated him.

The deprivation of food, water, or medical treatment would eventually have resulted in death, if not for the boy's own efforts to reach a phone and call for help. The trial court's finding that the alleged facts, if proven, would establish an intent to kill was not clearly erroneous. You, sir, get the fuck out of here. Take a hike. Affirmed. Take a walk, dickhead.

So there you go. Keep on fucking. Keep on trucking and fucking. And I hope you're scared shitless by a clown at some point because you goddamn deserve it. Holy hell, man. So he's there. He's 95 years old until parole.

His appeals are gone on it. He's screwed. Thankfully, he's there. Poor Thad is limping around Wisconsin somewhere. That's the worst I've ever felt. It's horrible. During hearing a story without sexual assault in it. You know what I mean?

Because it was so calculated. And so long. Yeah, and so prolonged. Usually there's a sexual assault and then they murder him it's not like let me keep you around for 43 hours and torture you the living shit out of your legs we've had one or two like that but they weren't even like it wasn't constant torture like that it was like you're gonna sit there for a while i'll punch you and knock you down it's nuts uh that's like bubble wrap to him he just kept popping the bubbles. He couldn't stop.

That's what I mean. He needed it. He was obsessed with that. In 2009, Thad Phillips actually appeared on TV. He appeared in a television show called Escaped in the, quote, torture in suburbia episode. He tells his part of the story. There was a couple like little weird, like I saw somebody somewhere on a comment board somewhere

on a message board said that they saw something about this on the Justice Channel or some shit. I don't have cable, so I have no idea. I didn't really look for them. I just did my own research and looked at court documents. So fuck those things. Anyway, moving on. Christian Steiner is buried at St. Joseph's Cemetery

in Baraboo. nice stone yeah they should picture the grave nice stone couple of potted plants on the sides classy yeah nice now what i was going to say here if he would have just broken and fixed his own bones shooing for the circus that's a fucking act never mind plate spinning that's an act at least snap your ankle wrap it up then do it like a do like a little jig afterwards. Oh, forget about it. You're in at that point. You are circus folk. The sword swallower and the fucking ankle breaker.

You're the ankle breaker. He's like the puzzleman from last week. We have the puzzleman and we have the ankle breaker. So that is Baraboo, Wisconsin. That is one of the most horrific stories I've ever even heard about. Never mind, I actually had to describe in great detail and read gory, grisly court documents over. But it is what it is, guys.

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Philly V. Adam Losey, Robin. This one is so brutal. Robin Jarulf. Jarulf? Oh. J-A-R-U-L-F, hyphen, Settley. Nice. I like that one. Jarulf Settley. That's a brutal one.

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You guys know I love dogs. Thanks, Zach, for sending me pictures and videos of Lundy. Jessica, she wrote a letter and said, I'm donating just to hear you ruin my name. I saw that. I want to hear it destroyed. Do it up, Jimmy. Give her what she paid for.

Give the lady. I know you've been told that before. You've been brought into a room. Give her what she paid for. Give the lady what she paid for, will you? Jessica Corporate. Hey, dance around. Corporate.

Shake your ass. She's paying good money. Let's do this. Corporate. I think it's Corporate. All right, good. Corinne Price. Alicia Ramey, or Rami.

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That's it. Donna Getzum. Claire Jeans or Jeans. I don't know. We got one from, okay, so we get a donation a lot from a guy named Dan. Yes. He doesn't want his last name used. And then we got a donation.

It's a wonderful man. Exact same amount that he usually sends. And I don't remember his last name. So if it's you, Dan, I'm not going to say his last name used. And then we got a donation. It's a wonderful man. Exact same amount that he usually sends. And I don't remember his last name. So if it's you, Dan, I'm not going to say your last name. But the Dan that just sent us a large donation, thank you, Dan. Thank you. Honestly, that is so huge for us. We can't do this without you.

You have no idea what that actually made us go, oh, God, that's helped so much. You have no idea. It came at a great time. It's incredible. So thank you, guys. Ashley Stevebs, I don't think it's steve ibs i think she had a typo stroke and it's actually stevens the b isn't right next to the end my friend really is that's why i mean that might be steven yeah or maybe it's steve ibs and i don't

want to ruin it so if it is actually thank you a lovely name and then candace smut punks thank you all so much for helping seriously a tremendous amount We truly can't thank you enough. You keep this going and you literally put food on my table. So thank you. That's what it is. Honestly. Thank you guys so much for everything that you do for us because we couldn't do it without you. Like we said, we're not pushed out there by anybody. Nobody gives a shit.

Nobody cares except for you guys. A lot of listeners care. There's a lot of people that give a shit. They just don't run publications. Yeah, there's hundreds of thousands of you that give a shit, but none of you, unfortunately, run an influential entertainment magazine, unfortunately. That's fine. If you do,

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But if you can, hey, I'll accept your friend request, and we'll be buddies. Let's do that. But guys, that's the show for this week. It's been fun. It's been disturbing. But, whew, man, until next week, guys. It's been our pleasure. Bye.

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Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little bit different. I'm a little different. I'm a little different. I'm a little different. I'm a little different. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. app today. Or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus and Apple Podcasts. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com slash survey. Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community.

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