Dawn of Mantis: True Crime, Mysteries and More · Dawn of Mantis Podcast

DOM Ep342 - The "Baraboo Bone Breaker" Joe Clark

August 22, 2025·56 min·15 clips

The episode opens with Joe Clark's nickname and the scale of what he was accused of doing. The hosts lay out the 1995 abduction and torture of Thad Phillips, then stay focused on what followed after Thad escaped. That escape matters because it helped convict Clark in Thad's own case. It also helped connect Clark to the death of another boy who'd been found floating in the Wisconsin River a year before. The conversation spends time on how police and the Steiner family seemed to settle on the idea that the river death was foul play. They also note that the explanation that he simply fell into the river never really sat right with investigators. The conversation lingers on the possibility that someone else was there that night. It even includes the sheriff publicly promising not to charge a witness for withholding information if they came forward. Nobody did. The case soon ran cold. From there the episode jumps forward about a year. Thad Phillips and his family had just moved to Baraboo a few weeks earlier, and Thad had begun classes at Baraboo School just a week earlier. The show then shifts into the ordinary domestic setup that makes the horror hit harder. The family is watching a movie after dinner. Thad falls asleep on the couch. His sister falls asleep too. The hosts stay conversational, but the details keep tightening around the timeline. They are comfortable flagging when a detail seems likely rather than certain, and they keep poking at the gaps in the investigation. That loose style gives the episode room to breathe. It also means the case is never flattened into a clean chronology. Instead, the show keeps circling back to the same ugly facts from different angles. The result is a rough, talky true-crime story that cares more about how the evidence connects than about sounding polished. By the end, the episode leaves you with a convicted predator, an older river death that had gone cold, and a very plain sense that the worst part of the story is how much had to line up before anyone could see the pattern.

As heard by us

A conversational true-crime episode follows Thad Phillips, Joe Clark, and an earlier river death that Thad's escape helps connect.

The episode centers on Joe Clark, the Baraboo Bonebreaker, and the 1995 abduction and torture of Thad Phillips. It also tracks how Thad's escape helped link Clark to the earlier death of another boy, found floating in the Wisconsin River a year before.

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Why you'd press play

You want a case about Joe Clark, the Baraboo Bonebreaker, and the boy who escaped him long enough to help tie him to an older river death.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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