The Ruthless Teenage Killer Known As "The Bone Breaker"

In small town Baraboo, Wisconsin, teenage boys were vanishing in the middle of the night straight from their beds. That's going to call kids. If you get them out, then I will you for the like it's over there, then go. They were being abducted out of their family home by a killer, so brutal that he's known as the bone breaker. And where did your foot look like? That's right. We need that basically up. Even more terrifying than that, this killer was a teenage boy himself. This is an absolutely bizarre and brutal case, but it's also a heroic story of survival. What he lived through over the course of one weekend is something that many people probably even adults would have ruled over and given up and allowed themselves to die some time during their week. This is the case of the Baraboo bone breaker. My name is Brianna and I'm hot on the case. It was July 3, 1994 in small world town Baraboo, Wisconsin. 14 year old Chris Steiner had just finished up his first shift at his first ever job at his local McDonald's. Chris was so tired from his first ever work day that he went straight to his bedroom and he fell asleep on top of his bed, like on top of the covers, still wearing all of his clothes. His parents just let him fall asleep like that and they checked on him before heading off to bed themselves. Early the next morning on July 4, Chris's mother Kathy went into our son's bedroom to wake him up for his second shift at his first ever job, but when she went into our son's bedroom, he wasn't in his bed and he wasn't anywhere in the entire home. When police were called to report 14 year old Chris Steiner missing right away. There were a lot of various suspicious things found at his home. The back door of the house was unlocked, even though it was always double checked to be locked before the parents George and Kathy went to bed. The screen on the bedroom window of their other son's room had also been cut likely to gain entry to the home. Chris's older brother, whose bedroom window screen had been cut, wasn't home that night. Did the intruder know that? Or was Chris's older brother the intended victim inside and outside of the Steiner home. They found muddy shoe prints in a larger size than Chris wore. This is all pretty suspicious stuff, but the small town police officers in the 90s just right away assumed that Chris Steiner was a runaway. They thought because it was four from July weekend that Chris had snuck out to go hang out and party with his friends and that he would just be back later. All of his friends were questioned and they all denied being with Chris the night that he disappeared or having any idea where he was. Chris's parents, George and Kathy right away knew that he did not run away, especially after days and days passed and he never came home. He had just started that new job literally the night before that he was really, really excited about. And there was nothing stressful in their son's life that would make him just want to get up and leave his entire life behind. George and Kathy took every single opportunity to speak with the media to beg the public for their son's safe return. Volunteers searched the entire neighborhood and then the entire town and then the surrounding towns. Chris's big friend group went around the entire town putting up missing person's posters and then tragically one week after Chris Steiner disappeared from his bedroom on July 10th, 1994. His body was discovered in the Wisconsin River. Unfortunately, because of the lead stage of decomposition, there was a lot that the medical examiner could not confirm in his first autopsy. Like how long Chris Steiner had been in the water. The medical examiner believed that he had been in the water for at least two days, but it could have been the entire time that he was missing. His cause of death was ruled as a drowning. His manner of death was left as undetermined. His poor parents were absolutely devastated. This was their baby and they knew in their gut that this had to be some sort of foul play. But police were still trying to make this narrative make sense that they had decided when Chris has appeared that he had left his home voluntarily to go hang out and party with his friends and then something happened and he accidentally drowned. They even searched the entire area surrounding the river that his body was found in to try and see if they could find any evidence of a party, but they found nothing. And even though his friends would continuously deny knowing how Chris died, police would just keep on assuming for over a year that his friends were lying. Because they were afraid of getting in trouble and an entire year would pass. And then another teenage boy in Baraboo would vanish out of his home in the middle of the night. 13 year old Thaddeus, that Phillips had just moved to Baraboo with his family two weeks earlier. He was still settling into the area, trying to make new friends with kids in the neighborhood. Friday, July 28, 1995, after having dinner, Thad and his family sat down and watched a movie together in the living room, a movie that Thadde would not finish because he fell asleep on the couch. And then in the middle of the night, sometime between midnight and 2 a.m., Thadde could feel that someone was picking him up off of the couch. Not weird at all. It was really normal for Thadde to fall asleep on the couch and his parents would pick him up and bring him to his bed. Thadde is still really groggy and like still 90% asleep, when whoever was carrying him just suddenly dropped him. Thadde was now outside in his neighborhood, looking at a stranger. Thadde was really confused, probably still thought that he was just dreaming or something. His first thought was actually that one of his dad's friends had just walked into their house and woke him up and carried him outside because one of his dad's friends needed like help with his car or something. But as Thadde is waking up and he sees the person that is standing in front of him, the person that just broke into his home and carried him off of his couch and brought him outside. It wasn't a grown man and it definitely wasn't one of his father's friends. It was a teenage boy. Just like him, this was 17 year old Joe Clark. He lived in the exact same neighborhood, just a few blocks down, less than a half mile away from where Thadde lived. And Joe is super friendly. He's acting like the nicest guy ever, just completely ignoring this super weird situation that he is just caused, breaking into a stranger's house, picking him up off the couch and carrying him outside. He's acting like this is the most normal interaction he's ever had his entire life. Joe is telling Thadde that he just wants to hang out with him. He's actually planning a party in just a little bit. He's having a party at his house and he wanted to know with Thadde wanted to hang out with him before the party started. He even names a few people that will be at the party and these just have happened to be a few people that Thadde had already met from the neighborhood. He told me that he was going to be having a little party and he started naming off people that I knew from school when he said that they were going to be coming anytime and we're just going to hang out at a good time. He asks Thadde if Thadde wants to come back to his house, set up for the party and just hang out and wait for everyone else to get there. To this day, Thadde has no idea why he agreed to go back to Joe's house with him. A complete stranger in this super bizarre situation. I think it's very likely that Thadde was still like half asleep, really confused and didn't fully understand what was happening yet. Thadde has also tried to make sense of this by thinking maybe he was still so young and naive. Nothing bad had ever happened to him yet in his life to make him think that people would ever have bad intentions and that he had to be worried that something bad might happen to him one day. The first thing that Thadde noticed when he went into Joe's house was how filthy and disgusting it was. Dirty clothes, dirty dishes, moldy rotten food, beer cans, littered the entire home. Joe doesn't mention anything about the mess, but he's still acting like the nicest, most nonchalant guy in the entire world. And he asks Thadde if he wants to go up to his bedroom with him and look at his model cars while they wait for the party to start. Up in Joe's bedroom, they're looking at his model cars. It's all normal. It's all fun. Before out of nowhere, Joe gets up and he pushes 13 year old Thadde Phillips onto his bed without any warning. Joe grabs Thadde's right ankle and he twists it until it snaps. Thadde tries to get up and run away, but now his ankles broken. So Joe quickly catches up to him and throws him back on the bed and he breaks multiple bones in his right leg from his foot, his ankle, all the way up to his hip. The next morning, Dad's parents discovered that he was gone. They searched the entire neighborhood the entire day before reporting him missing. Never thinking that he was just a half mile up the road. Waking up on Saturday morning, Joe Clark is acting nice again. That thought, if he just kept being nice to Joe, being his friend, that maybe Joe would feel bad about hurting him and just let him go. That morning, the two boys just hang out on the couch together. They're watching TV. They're talking about school and about girls. And then out of nowhere, Joe gets this crazed look in his eye. The same look he had before attacking Thad the night earlier. He then just gets up without saying a word. He picks up Thad, carries him back upstairs, throws him on his bed, and he starts breaking the bones in his left leg this time. When Thad tries to fight back, try to get Joe off of him. Joe tells him that he is a sit there and he has to take it. Or Joe will break Thad's back or his neck, either paralyzing him for life or killing him. He didn't really care either way. It was just a terrifying cycle for two entire days. Joe would be really nice at that. They'd be talking like there are two buddies and then out of nowhere. He would start breaking the bones in both of his legs, jumping on them, bending and twisting them until they snapped. Joe would tell Thad that his entire life he had always been extremely fascinated in bones. And he liked breaking bones. And he loved the sound that it made. As you can imagine, after the bones and Thad's legs were crushed, he was in unimaginable pain. This is Peruvial Torture. And Joe was actually getting off on the pain that he was causing 13-year-old Thad. So much that after breaking the bones in Thad's legs, Joe would masturbate in front of Thad, while Thad is in real pain. Because Joe Clark is a sexual satis. But then after torturing Thad, Joe would start caring for him and caring for his injuries. He had two leg braces for Thad. He would also wrap his legs in ace bandages and then put on multiple layers of really thick white gym socks on his legs. He would do all of that and just hours later, he would start torturing Thad again and start breaking the bones in his feet, his ankles, his knees, his legs and his hips again. On Saturday night, Joe told Thad that he would be leaving for a few hours. Just to guarantee that Thad wouldn't be going anywhere, he tortured and broke his bones some more before heading downstairs to leave. From the upstairs bedroom, Thad could hear Joe downstairs before he left talking to someone. Thad did the best he could to like eavesdrop to try and figure out whether or not there was actually someone else in the house. Thad was pretty confident that there was not anyone else in the home, but him and Joe, so Joe was likely talking to someone on the phone. And after he heard Joe leave, Thad knew that he had to get to that phone. But Thad could not walk. The pain in his legs was so intense, I could not even begin to imagine how much pain this boy was in. But he still somehow managed to slide off the bed and then drag himself and his shattered legs through the bedroom, through the hallway and to the top of the stairs. He tried to go down the stairs legs first, but it was just way too painful. Thad knew that the only way that he was getting down those stairs was to rip off the bandaid. And he threw himself down the stairs. He said that the pain was so horrific that multiple times he would just pass out from the pain, then wake up a little bit later, try the move some more, and then he'd pass out from the pain again. He finally made it to the kitchen. When he heard Joe Clark walk back inside the house. Joe did not see Thad at first lying quietly on the floor of his kitchen because he was too busy. He brought his girlfriend back with him. The two hooked up a little bit before she left and that's when Joe found Thad. And he was furious. After this, it was the most horrific and brutal attack so far. Joe was repeatedly jumping with all of his force onto Thad's legs and on his knees. And then he was twisting them. Twisting his body parts until they were literally completely backwards. And then Joe told Thad something that confirmed his biggest fear. Joe did not intend on letting Thad leave this house alive. Joe confessed to Thad that he had done this three times before to three other boys. He even listed off his other victim's names. He asked Thad, "Do you know Chris Steiner? Sunday, the even more brutal torture continued for Thad trying to escape the night before. It continued throughout the entirety of Sunday from morning to night." Joe's girlfriend was planning on meeting Joe at his house later that night so her and Joe could go out on like a little date night. Thad would keep lying to Joe while Joe was breaking the bones in both of his legs, saying that he thought he could hear Joe's girlfriend outside that she had arrived. Just so Joe would go to the window for a second and look out to see if his girlfriend was there, just so Thad could get a few moments of peace from his legs and his bones being broken by this guy. And then finally, Joe's girlfriend really was here. Before leaving, Joe decided that he was not going to make the same mistake twice in a row. So he shoved Thad in his bedroom closet and locked him inside. And then he left. Thad knew that he was not going to survive another day, that this really was his last chance to survive. But now he's locked behind a very thick wooden door. He's looking around the dark closet trying to feel around and then he finds an electric guitar and he uses this guitar with both of his legs shattered to smash the closet door so he could escape. And once again, he repeated the same process as the last night, the same painful process, dragging himself to the staircase, throwing himself down the stairs again, repeatedly passing out from the intense, unbearable pain in both of his legs, dragging himself throughout the house, looking for the phone until he finally finds it. It was one of those home phones that is attached to the wall, but luckily it had a long wired cord that reached the bottom of the wall and Thad was able to yank on the cord and pull the receiver down. And thankfully, this was one of the phones that actually had the buttons to dial on the receiver and not on the base of the phone. So Thad Phillips could call 911. He says, "I've been kidnapped by my teenage neighbor. He's held me captive for two days and he's breaking all the bones in my legs." The 911 operator and the police actually thought at first that this was a prank call because of how bizarre and unbelievable it sounds. "That's going to call? "Yes, if he's kidnapped, he's in the house, and I wait you for the place to throw him in an ankle." "Yeah, better not be a joker. I got that case. No, no, it's just going to get me out here so you can't." And Thad actually had to convince the police officers, like this is real, please come save me. We actually have audio, a police going into Joe Clark's house, and finally rescuing 13-year-old Thad Phillips after he had been held hostage and tortured for 48 hours. "Bones and Thad's ankles, his knees, his hips, and his legs were broken. Like both of his femurs and his tibias were both broken. His hip bones were fractured, his ankles and his feet were absolutely shattered. Both of his feet were actually completely twisted backwards. His toes were all pointed in different directions. His knees were shattered. And I didn't even know that this was physically possible, but one of his kneecaps was completely twisted to the back of his leg. And he had internal bleeding in his legs so bad that hospital staff actually said that if that Phillips had been rescued even two hours later, that he would not have survived. And it was actually touch-and-go for a little bit if Thad was actually going to pull through and survive this. And he wanted to make sure that his parents knew everything, so he told his parents the second they got to the hospital that there were other victims before him. He actually had a lot of trouble remembering the names of Joe's victims. He did not know these people. He just moved to this neighborhood two weeks earlier. And he had also been suffering unimaginable torture. He was also severely dehydrated and hadn't eaten a single thing in two entire days. The only thing that he can remember was that one of the boys' names was Chris, he thought, and that the last name he believed started with an S. So his father grabs a phone book, remember phone books, and he's flipping through all of the S names in their neighborhood until he finally got to Steiner. And dad said that's it. It was Chris Steiner. That would undergo multiple surgeries to try and save his legs because they were so shattered, but he would survive. And 17-year-old Joe Clark was brought into custody. Now, if you're wondering where this 17-year-old boy's parents were while he was in their house torturing a child for two days, his parents were away for the weekend visiting Joe's older sister. Joe was brought to a juvenile detention center where he was questioned, and he would try and claim that he had blocked out the last two days and couldn't remember a single thing that happened. How convenient. Despite being 17 years old, Joe Clark was going to be tried as an adult. He was facing charges of attempted first-degree murder, kidnapping, intentionally causing great bodily harm to a child, and causing mental harm to a child. And he was facing nearly 200 years if convicted. Joe Clark would not attempt to claim that he was innocent and said he would try and claim that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. That he had been experiencing hallucinations and memory loss and he couldn't even remember the entire two days that he was holding thad hostage and for all he knew, that actually broke his own bones. His parents would even testify that in May of 1993, their son Joe suffered a terrible head injury after he'd motorcycle accident and was never the same ever again. But prosecution had evidence that they were covered in a search warrant of Joe Clark's bedroom. In a notebook, he wrote out three lists. The first list was titled Get to Now. The second list was titled Ken Wait. And the third list was titled Leg Thing. And under each list were the names of several boys in Joe Clark's neighborhood. This was evidence that Joe Clark was not insane at the time of his crimes, that all of his crimes were planned and he was planning to do this to even more boys. This was a hit list. Get to Now. Ken Wait. Leg Thing. A very well known forensic psychiatrist named Park Dietz, who was either consulted or testified in multiple high profile cases like the trials of Ted Kaczynski and Jeffrey Dahmer, testified in Joe Clark's trial. He testified that Joe Clark was very obviously baking his symptoms of insanity like his hallucinations and memory loss were completely faked. He also testified that Joe Clark was a sexual sadist. But sexual sadism is not an eligible cause for like pleading not guilty by reason of insanity. The most powerful testimony was when that Phillips took the stand, recounting every single horrific detail of his 48 hours of torture. And that Joe confessed to him that he had done this to three boys before him. It took the jury one hour to deliberate and agree that they were denying Joe's knock guilty by reason of insanity defense and a judge sentenced Joe Clark to 100 years in prison. And that was just for what he did to 13-year-old Thad Phillips. Now it was time for Joe Clark to go on trial for the murder of 14-year-old Chris Steiner. After the revelation that Joe had confessed to Thad for the murder of Chris Steiner one year after Chris Steiner died, his body was exhumed and now a full autopsy was done which included an X-ray. And the X-ray showed that there were fractures in Chris's ankles and legs that were nearly identical to the fractures that they saw on Thad Phillips. This was amazing evidence, but the state's key witness was Thad Phillips and his testimony that Joe Clark confessed to Chris Steiner's murder. But right before the murder trial could begin, Thad Phillips was shot. The 15-year-old friend and neighbor of Joe Clark, Michael Hibsch, shot Thad Phillips twice in the back, likely as revenge for his friend and to keep Thad from testifying against his friend in his friend's upcoming murder trial. Thad survived this as well. He was only 15-year-old and now he's survived being tortured for 48 hours and has also survived being shot two times in the back. He was only 15-year-old when this happened. But Thad would still go on to testify against Joe Clark in his murder trial for the murder of Chris Steiner only one month later after being shot two times in the back. Joe Clark would plead not guilty. Not guilty period. He was very adamant that he never murdered anyone and his parents were extremely supportive of him and even acted as his alibi. Testifying that on the night that Chris disappeared, their son was asleep in his bed and they checked on him multiple times throughout the night and he was asleep in his bed the entire time. The only problem was that the prosecution would challenge this. In a search of their home, they found Joe's journals where he repeatedly detailed both of his parents' severe alcoholism and how they would be passed out drunk every single night before he even went to bed. Joe Clark was found guilty of the first degree intentional murder of 14-year-old Chris Steiner. In addition to his 100-year sentence for the kidnapping and torture of Thad Phillips, Joe Clark was sentenced to life in prison plus an additional 40 years. Joe Clark will not be eligible for parole until 2057 at the age of 80 years old. As for the two other victims that Joe confessed to Thad about, they have never been identified sadly. And for shooting Thad Phillips to keep him from testifying against Joe, Michael was charged with attempted first degree murder because he was a juvenile, the details of his case are not widely available, unfortunately, and there is not publicly available information on how long he was confined or what his juvenile sentence was. The only thing I could find to pelt this was this old newspaper article about the fact that he was being charged with first degree murder but nothing about a sentence. The next update I have about Michael though was that in 2018 at the age of 35 years old, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for the sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl. In 1997, Thad and his parents took Joe Clark to civil court seeking damages. Not even to mention the physical and mental trauma that he put that through but now the family was drowning in medical debt. The judge ordered in favor of the Phillips and awarded them 21 million dollars. Money that even today in 2026, Thad and his family have never even seen a single cent of. So on April 6th, 2023, 20 years after being awarded 21 million dollars and never getting it, a GoFundMe was created by one of Thad's friends only if you're inclined to and financially able to, I will have this GoFundMe linked in my link tree on all my socials and also in the description of this episode. The community of Baraboo see Thad Phillips as a hero that he took a serial killer or a potential serial killer in the making off of the streets. Thad Phillips is a hero. He's also a survivor and a father and I truly wish him all of the best in his healing. This is really an unbelievable bizarre case and you guys are always asking me to cover cases of survival. So I knew that I definitely wanted to spotlight Thad Phillips story and this is honestly a case that I'm shocked is not more well known. I only learned about this case myself a few years ago when I covered it on TikTok but it is not that well known really at all. Let me know in the comments if you have ever heard of this case before all of your thoughts and opinions and theories on this case. Do you believe that Joe Clark has two other victims out there? I think it's definitely possible. It's the 90s before like you know databases like national databases were primarily used throughout the entire country and this was also like a small town. I think it's very possible that a boy maybe three towns over could have disappeared or something and they wouldn't have linked it. I'm so interested to hear all of your thoughts theories and opinions on that while you're in the comments. Please let me know what case would see me cover in a future hot in the case episode. By the time this episode comes out I will be about to return from my honeymoon. This episode and the prior two episodes were pre filmed because I'm getting married and then I'm going on my honeymoon. So I'm definitely going to be trying to respond to as many comments as I can but please just be patient with me. I return on August 21st. So after that I'll be back to regularly scheduled commenting and also programming Because I won't have. filmed an episode actually in like three weeks, which is kind of crazy. But yes, let me know all your thoughts in the comments. And that was all I have for this week's episode. And I will see you guys all next Friday when we are hot in the case once again.