CRIMINAL COLD CASES-FUGITIVES FINALLY BROUGHT TO JUSTICE-4-JOE CLARK: THE BON...

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JOE CLARK: THE BONE BREAKER
NOBODY WANTS TO DIG UP A BODY – ESPECIALLY THE BODY OF SOMEONE WHO HAS DIED AS THE RESULT OF A TRAGIC ACCIDENT, AND WHOM RELATIVES FEEL SHOULD BE LEFT TO REST IN PEACE. YET IN SOME CASES, AFTER SUCH AN ACCIDENT – SOMETIMES YEARS LATER – DOUBTS BEGIN TO BE RAISED AS TO HOW EXACTLY THE VICTIM MET THEIR DEATH.
In these cases, the body must be dug up and looked at once again, this time more carefully. This is what happened in the dramatic case of Chris Steiner, a fourteen-year-old boy who was presumed drowned simply through a tragic accident, and who lay in his grave for a year before the authorities learned that his death may have been a violent one, and decided to investigate further.

Manner of death: undetermined
Chris Steiner lived in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and on the night of 4 July 1994, disappeared from his home. It was a mystery as to why he had disappeared; his parents could give no reason for it, and could not believe that he had simply run away from home. When the police were called in, they noticed sinister indications at the scene of the crime. It was clear that Chris' bedroom window had been wrenched open, and there were muddy footprints on the carpet of the room, which suggested that someone had come in from outside and abducted the boy. Downstairs, a patio door was found to be unlocked, and it was thought that the intruder had entered the house through this door. A search was launched, but it was only six days later that the teenager's body was found. It was lying over a tree beside a sandbar on the Wisconsin River.
The quiet, peaceful community of Baraboo was shocked by this horrific, unexpected discovery. An autopsy on the body was performed, but the coroner could not say what had caused the boy's death. There was no sign that Steiner had been attacked or wounded. He had not been strangled. His body was bloated from being in the water, and thus his cause of death was listed as drowning. However, the coroner could not ascertain the manner of his death which meant that this could not be classified and his death was listed as undetermined.
Despite the circumstances of Steiner's disappearance, and the signs that he had been abducted from his home, the police were unable to make any headway in the subsequent investigation. Without any clear leads to follow, the case soon went cold.

Liked to hear bones break
It was only when the murderer struck again, and this time the victim escaped, that Chris Steiner's death was re-investigated. A year had passed when, on 29 July 1995, another boy from the area, thirteen-year-old Thad Phillips, was abducted from his home, this time in the early hours of the morning. Thad had been fast asleep on the living room couch when he woke to find himself being carried through the house. At first he thought it was one of his parents who had picked him up to take him to his bed. However, instead, the person took him outside. Still half asleep, Thad thought that he recognized the person as a friend of the family.
The abductor was Joe Clark, a seventeen-year-old young man who lived in the area and who was known to the police as a troublemaker. Joe and Thad walked to a deserted house a mile away, Thad still confused as to what was going on. It was only once they were there that Thad realized he had made a big mistake. Clark took him to a filthy upstairs room, laid him on the bed, and began to torture him by twisting his ankles until one of them broke. In extreme pain, Thad got up and struggled downstairs, but Clark followed him and pinned him down again, this time breaking his leg at the thigh. Clark then told Thad how much he liked to hear bones break, and continued to torture the boy for hours. In a sick parody of caring for the boy, Clark then fashioned crude bandages for his victim's legs from socks and braces, before leaving him alone. Clark went out of the house, thinking that Thad would never be able to escape now that his legs were broken.
A short while afterwards, Clark returned, this time with a girl, who sat with him in the living room and then left the house. Clark then discovered, to his surprise, that Thad had now dragged himself all the way to the kitchen, intending to escape. To punish him, Clark took him upstairs again and tortured him once more, this time threatening to kill him.
That evening, Clark went out again. Before he went, he made sure that his victim could not escape by locking him in a bedroom closet. Alone in the closet, Thad must have felt his time was running out, but he was determined not to give in to despair. He summoned all his willpower, and told himself that he would survive. He found an old electric guitar in the closet and managed to batter the door down with it. Somehow, he managed to drag himself downstairs again, and although he kept fainting with pain, was able to reach the telephone. He dialled 911 and told the operator where he was and what had happened.

Boasted about murder
The police came quickly to the house. There they found Thad with fractures to both of his legs, dehydrated and suffering enormous pain and fatigue. Thad told them the story of his ordeal, describing his tormentor, and saying that he had boasted about other victims he had injured, one of whom was Chris Steiner. The police immediately suspected local troublemaker Joe Clark. In Clark's bedroom, they found a chilling piece of evidence: a piece of paper with a list of boys' names on it. There were eighteen names under three separate headings: 'Get To Now'; 'Can Wait'; and 'The Leg Thing'. The names on the list all were local boys.

What was the draw of broken bones?

Clark was charged with attempted homicide, and was convicted. He was sentenced to a prison term of a hundred years. However, after this conviction, he chose to plead not guilty to the murder of Chris Steiner.
In order to find out what had happened to Steiner, his body had been exhumed. When it had been examined at the time of his death, it had not shown any signs of violent attack, and it had been unclear as to how he met his end. This time, with the knowledge of what had happened to Thad Phillips, Steiner's body was checked for bone breakages, and X-rays were taken. Sure enough, the X-rays revealed that his legs had been broken in four separate places, in the same way that Thad's were. It seemed that, having rendered Steiner's legs useless, the vicious Clark had then thrown the injured boy in the river, where he drowned.
Clark's parents tried to protect their son by claiming that he had been at home on the night of Steiner's murder, but it was known that Clark often surreptitiously left the house while his mother was sleeping. An inmate of the juvenile detention institution in which Clark had spent time also testified that Clark had boasted to him about killing a boy and afterwards draping his body over a tree in the river.
There was not much doubt that Clark was guilty as charged, and on 7 November 1997, Clark was convicted of the murder of Chris Steiner. He was sentenced to life imprisonment plus a further term of fifty years. To this day, Clark maintains that he was innocent of Steiner's murder, but – not surprisingly – there are few that believe him.