Friday August 20, 1999 From the Channel 4 newsroom, here's today's top story...

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BARTOW, Fla. (AP) - Joshua Phillips was sentenced this morning to life in prison with no chance of parole for beating and stabbing an 8-year-old neighbor whose body was found days later stuffed in the frame of his waterbed.

Joshua, 15, was tried as an adult last month and convicted of first-degree murder in the Nov. 3, 1998 death of Maddie Clifton, whose body was found days later stuffed in the frame of his waterbed. The pixie-faced girl lived 25 feet across the street from him in a Jacksonville neighborhood.

Joshua had even pretended to help in the neighborhood search for Maddie when there was hope she was still alive.

The sentencing came after emotional pleas from the Phillips family, and from the Clifton family, in a hearing that lasted about an hour.

Because he was 14 at the time of the slaying, Phillips faced a maximum sentence of life in prison. Florida law bars the death penalty for killers under 16 and Florida courts have said a 15-year-old is too young to face the electric chair.

Phillips never denied killing Maddie. He told police he accidentally hit her in the eye with a baseball as they played in his back yard. He panicked at her screams and was scared his father would punish him.