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

AFTER ONE DAY:
Prosecution AND defense rest

After the prosecution rested, Joshua Phillips, his attorney and parents discussed the decision not to testify with Judge Charles Arnold.

The fatal bludgeoning and stabbing of an 8-year-old girl by a teen-age neighbor was a "horror story like from Stephen King" but it was not premeditated murder, the teen's attorney said Wednesday. And in the biggest surprise of an eventful and emotional day in a Polk County courtroom, Joshua Phillips' attorney rested his case without calling any defense witnesses.

Less than an hour earlier, after calling only nine witnesses -- including Clifton family, neighbors, police officers and the medical examiner -- the prosecution had rested.

This means the jurors will begin deliberating Phillips fate on Thursday after closing arguments. He faces life in prison if convicted as charged of first-degree murder.

Defense attorney Richard D. Nichols said he had planned to call one witness, a neurologist who examined Phillips, but chose not to because of "defense strategy." Circuit Judge Charles Arnold then questioned Phillips and his parents about that decision and the decision not to have the defendant testify.

Joshua Phillips, 15, had no motive for killing Maddie Clifton and at worst should be accused of manslaughter, Nichols said in opening statements in the teen's first-degree murder trial. "The evidence will show he is not a monster," Nichols told jurors.

State Attorney Harry Shorstein said Joshua beat Maddie with a baseball bat, stabbed her throat with a knife and then stuffed her body under his waterbed in his parents' Jacksonville home on Nov. 3, 1998.

Maddie's underpants and shorts were removed, although investigators have said there was no evidence she was sexually assaulted. "This is a case of a brutal first-degree murder of an 8-year-old girl," Shorstein said in the prosecution's opening statement.

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. He could be sent to prison for life with no chance of parole.

His trial was moved 200 miles from Jacksonville to the central Florida town of Bartow, about 40 miles southeast of Tampa, because of intense news coverage.

The night Maddie disappeared, Joshua grabbed a flashlight and joined in the search.

For seven days, as hundreds of volunteers scoured the neighborhood, Maddie's body lay stuffed inside the frame of Joshua's waterbed, right across the street from her home. Detectives even interviewed Joshua, with him sitting his bed while her body lay underneath, Shorstein said.

It wasn't until Joshua's mother, Melissa Phillips, saw liquid oozing from her son's waterbed, that she 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.

The room smelled despite efforts to cover up the odor with deodorizers, sprays and incense. Blood was found on a ceiling fan 8 feet above the floor, said Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Detective David Chase.

Detectives assembled the bed in the courtroom for the jurors. Jurors also saw pictures of the room, in which a missing-persons flier of Maddie was hanging from a shelf.

Joshua told police detectives that he and Maddie played baseball in his backyard that afternoon, although several witnesses testified that would be unlikely since the neighborhood kids usually played ball in Maddie's front yard and Joshua's yard was too small.

One neighbor, Rose Illardi, testified she saw Joshua sneaking up on Maddie in the girl's backyard. When asked by the defense attorney why she didn't do anything, Ms. Illardi said she didn't think Maddie would be hurt since the girl turned around and saw Joshua standing just a few feet from her.

"I stood there to watch and make sure he wasn't going to push her down and if he did I was going to holler at him," Ms. Illardi said. "When she turned around, I went inside the house."

According to Joshua's story, he accidentally hit Maddie in the eye with a ball and she began screaming, Shorstein said.

Joshua told detectives that he panicked and dragged Maddie into his bedroom. When she wouldn't stop screaming, he hit her in the head with a bat. When she kept moaning, Joshua grabbed a knife and stabbed her in the neck, Shorstein said.

He then stuffed her under his water bed and went to wash up. After Joshua heard her moaning, he pulled her from the bed and stabbed her again until she stopped breathing, the prosecutor said.

An autopsy showed Maddie was beaten over the head and stabbed at least nine times in the chest and twice in the neck, he said.

Maddie's 12-year-old sister, Jessica, testified Wednesday that her mother had restricted the girls from playing with Joshua after he had spoken to them about sex.

In her testimony, Maddie's mother, Sheila Clifton, described her daughter as a girl who loved to chip golf balls and play piano. "Maddie was a feisty tom boy," she said.