| Updated Monday, July 5th @ 6:15 p.m. |
|
|
|
 's Deborah Gianoulis and Ray Lane will present live coverage from Bartow from Daybreak to Nitebeat for the duration of the trial.
 A Snapshot of Maddie
...a memorial to Maddie
|
Listen to live The night 8-year-old Maddie Clifton disappeared, neighbor Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips grabbed a flashlight and joined in the search.
A week later, the little girl's body was found hidden underneath the 14-year-old boy's waterbed, across the street from her home in Jacksonville.
On Tuesday, Joshua is to go on trial on a first-degree murder charge.
Joshua, now 15, will be tried as an adult. Since he is under 16, he can't be sentenced to death in Florida if convicted. Instead, he could be sent to prison for life with no chance of parole.
Circuit Judge Charles W. Arnold expects a pool of 200 potential jurors. The trial is not expected to last more than seven days.
The judge moved the trial 200 miles to Bartow, 40 miles southeast of Tampa, for its large courtroom and because the crime has not generated as much publicity as in Jacksonville.
"I don't think we could find any juror without some knowledge of this case," Arnold has said. He banned attorneys, families, witnesses and police from discussing the case.
On Nov. 3, Maddie had been outside playing for 30 minutes - some of the time chipping golf balls - when her mother, Sheila Clifton, called her home to practice the piano. Maddie never responded.
Over the next few days, volunteers handed out fliers and pictures of the missing girl, even distributing fliers and yellow ribbons to 70,000 fans at a Jacksonville Jaguars-Cincinnati Bengals NFL game.
A week after Maddie's disappearance, Melissa Phillips saw liquid oozing from underneath her son's waterbed, pulled aside the frame and saw Maddie's feet. She ran outside and grabbed a police officer.
An autopsy showed Maddie had been beaten over the head and stabbed at least nine times in the chest and twice in the neck.
Police said Joshua gave them a statement incriminating himself. But his attorney Richard Nichols, said Joshua's statement was coerced. The boy was not given an opportunity to first talk with a lawyer, although he had asked to do so, Nichols said, and Joshua was intimidated by detectives.
Nonetheless, Nichols wants the statement presented to jurors. He said Joshua suffers from an unspecified mental dysfunction, and he has filed documents indicating he plans to use that to defend his client.