AI Summary
5 min readThe Boy Who Survived the "Bone Breaker"
In the small town of Baraboo, Wisconsin, 13-year-old Thad Phillips had lived in his new neighborhood for only two weeks when a friendly-seeming 17-year-old neighbor named Joe Clark knocked on his door late one night in July 1995. Joe said he was planning a party and wanted Thad to come hang out beforehand. Thad agreed. That decision led to 48 hours of torture so extreme that hospital staff later said if he had been rescued just two hours later, he would not have survived. But what made the case even more disturbing was what Joe confessed while breaking Thad's bones: he had done this before. Three times. And one of those victims was a 14-year-old boy named Chris Steiner, who had vanished from his bed exactly one year earlier.
The First Disappearance
On July 3, 1994, 14-year-old Chris Steiner came home exhausted from his first shift at his first job at McDonald's and fell asleep on top of his bed still wearing his clothes. The next morning, his mother Kathy went to wake him for his second shift and found him gone. The back door was unlocked, though it was always double-checked before bed. The screen on his older brother's bedroom window had been cut. Muddy shoe prints in a size larger than Chris's were found inside and outside the home.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Case Introduction: The Baraboo Bone Breaker** - The host sets up the mystery of teenage boys vanishing from their beds in small-town Wisconsin and introduces the brutal killer known as the "Bone Breaker."
- 2 (02:14) **The First Victim: Chris Steiner Disappears** - The story begins with 14-year-old Chris Steiner falling asleep after his first shift at McDonald's on July 3rd, 1994.
- 3 (04:47) **Discovery of Chris's Body & Initial Dead End** - One week later, Chris's body is found in the Wisconsin River, but the police continue to push a "party-gone-wrong" narrative.
- 4 (06:26) **The Second Victim: Thad Phillips is Abducted** - A year later, 13-year-old Thad Phillips, new to town, is carried from his couch in the middle of the night by a stranger.
- 5 (09:52) **The Torture Begins: The "Bone Breaker" Emerges** - At Joe's filthy house, the friendly act ends when Joe violently breaks Thad's ankle without warning.
- 6 (11:48) **The Cycle of Torture and Sadism** - Over two days, Joe alternates between being friendly and brutally breaking Thad's bones, revealing his sexual sadism.
- 7 (14:16) **Thad's First Desperate Escape Attempt** - While Joe leaves, Thad drags his shattered legs through the house and throws himself down the stairs to reach a phone.
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Show Notes
In this week's investigation Hot On The Case goes to Baraboo Wisconsin, where young boys began vanishing from their homes in the middle of the night. Unravel the true crime case behind the criminal who became known as "The Bone Breaker".. A killer whose crimes shocked a community due to their cruel nature & due to the discovery that the person kidnapping these boys, turned out to be a teen himself.
If you'd like to support Thad Phillips, copy the link below:
https://gofund.me/1f41304f2
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