Resources, etc. NewsChannel 's Deborah Gianoulis and Ray Lane will report live from Bartow in every newscast from Daybreak to Nitebeat for the duration of the trial. While court is in session... Listen to live audio of the trial presented in cooperation with jacksonville.com A Snapshot of Maddie Nine Months from Disappearance to Trial A Community Morns ...a memorial to Maddie

Jury seated in Phillips murder trial

Joshua Phillips with his attorney Richard Nichols in the courtroom in Polk County this morning.

Two women and 12 men will hear the first-degree murder case against Joshua Earl Patrick Phillips. Phillips is charged with killing 8-year-old Maddie Clifton and hiding her body under his waterbed.

Tuesday at 5:45 p.m. the jury and two alternates were seated. Jury instructions and opening statements are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday. The state attorney's office tells Deborah Gianoulis that Maddie's mother, Sheila Clifton, will be the first witness called.

This trial for the November slaying was moved from Jacksonville to Bartow, a small phosphate mining town about 40 miles southeast of Tampa, because of the intense publicity generated by the crime.

The night Maddie disappeared, Joshua grabbed a flashlight and joined in the search. For seven days, hundreds of volunteers scoured the child's Jacksonville neighborhood.

All the while, Maddie's body was under a sheet of plywood supporting the frame of Joshua's waterbed, 25 feet across the street from her home, authorities said.

A week after Maddie's disappearance, Melissa Phillips saw liquid oozing from her son's waterbed, pulled aside the frame and saw Maddie's feet. She ran outside and grabbed a police officer patrolling the neighborhood, too horrified to even tell him what she saw.

Joshua, who was 14 at the time of Maddie's slaying, is being tried as an adult. Since he is under 16, he cannot 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, who ordered the trial moved, said he expected the trial to last four to six days. A pool of 200 potential jurors was called.

Arnold has said he chose Bartow, 40 miles southeast of Tampa, for its large courtroom and because the crime has not generated publicity there. The judge has barred attorneys, families, witnesses and police from discussing the case.

An autopsy showed Maddie was beaten over the head and stabbed at least nine times in the chest and twice in the neck. Detectives recovered a baseball bat and a knife believed to be the murder weapons.

Police were unable to find anything in Joshua's past to indicate he was capable of killing. He had no criminal record in this state or in Pennsylvania and Vermont, where his family also lived for a time.

Police said Joshua gave them a statement incriminating himself. But his attorney Richard Nichols said Joshua's statement was coerced. Joshua 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.

(The Associated Press contributed to this report. All Rights Reserved.)