Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 38

4b TIMES FRIDAY, JULY 9, 1999 FLORIDA NEWS Teen guilty of killing girl, hiding her in bed Student faces 8 years for plot to bomb middle school Sun-Sntinl "We're not here to act as a bunch of well-dressed vigilantes." Detectives testified during the trial that Joshua confessed to the murder. According to Joshua's story, he accidentally hit Maddie in the eye with a baseball while they were playing in his back yard. She began screaming. Joshua told detectives that he panicked because he feared being punished by his father 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.

Awcitd Pr BARTOW A teenager was found guilty Thursday of fatally bludgeoning and stabbing his 8-year-old neighbor and then stuffing her body into the frame of his water bed. A jury deliberated for more than two hours before convicting 15-year-old Joshua Phillips of first-degree murder in the death of Maddie Clifton, who lived across the street from him in a Jacksonville neighborhood. Joshua showed no emotion as the verdict was read. Maddie's parents, Steve and Sheila Clifton, blinked back tears. "This is a day of justice for Maddie," Maddie Clifton, 8, was beaten over the head and stabbed at least 1 1 times, records show.

1 Sheila Clifton said outside the courthouse, clutching a bracelet with Mad-die's name on it "That piece of my heart that's gone is waiting ii i i tiS I ulc siue, waning un uic iff ') 1 other side for us." i jusiiua a mil my anu ins nuui- ney left the courthouse without talking to reporters. Joshua, who was 14 at the time of the murder, was tried as an adult Since he is younger than 16, he cannot be sentenced to death in Florida. He could be sent to prison for life with no chance of parole. Circuit Judge Charles Arnold set a presentencing hearing for Aug. 12.

He then stuffed her body into the frame of his water bed and went to wash up. After Joshua heard her moaning, he pulled h'er from the bed and stabbed her again until she stopped breathing, according to Joshua's story. An autopsy showed Maddie was beatenover the head and stabbed at least nine times in the chest and twice in the neck, he said. "The evidence shows us there was an accident that deteriorated into panic and then murder," Nichols said. State Attorney Harry Shorstein said Joshua's story was unlikely and suggested that the murder may have been sexually motivated.

There was no blood on the ball, no blood in the yard and no dirt on Maddie's body or clothes. He said Maddie's pants and underpants were removed from her body, and Joshua had previously talked to Maddie and her sister about sex. His trial was moved 200 miles from Jacksonville to the Central Florida town of Bartow, about 40 miles east of Tampa, because of intense news coverage. The trial only lasted two days because Joshua's lawyers presented no witnesses or evidence. "This case was open and shut" Shorstein said, adding there was no clear motive for Maddie's death.

"There aren't any great explanations." Fifteen-year-old Joshua Phillips faces up to life in prison with no chance for parole. Maddie disappeared Nov. 3, 1998, prompting a search of her Jacksonville neighborhood involving hundreds of volunteers. Her decomposing body was found seven days later stuffed in the frame of Joshua's water bed across the street from her home. His attorney argued earlier Thursday that Mad-die's murder wasn't premeditated and urged jurors to convict Joshua of manslaughter.

"We're not here to act out of some form of A 13-year-old Hollywood girl found guilty of soliciting people to murder staff members and students at her middle school could be sent to a residential juvenile detention facility until she turns 21. After a two-day hearing, Broward Circuit Judge Melanie May said recent incidents have shown society has to take it seriously when children threaten violence. The girl, who isn't being named because of her age, was arrested just days after the Columbine High School shootings. The girl will undergo a psychiatric evaluation before her sentencing July 22. She will remain under house arrest until sentencing.

Experts will recommend a sentence to the judge. Prosecutors said the girl plotted to shoot students and staff as well as blow up portable classrooms at her school. Evidence in the case included a letter she wrote detailing her plan and a hand-drawn map of her school that showed the location of security cameras and stick figures representing some of her victims. "She asked seven different people over three days to help her murder people at Bair Middle and bomb the school," said prosecutor Deborah Young. The Sunrise eighth-grader was arrested after she met with friends at school on April 23 and told them to either help her or stay away from school on June 14.

About 250 students stayed home on that day, although the girl had been arrested. The bomb threat at the Bair campus was one of several in South Florida schools in the days after the April 20 tragedy in Littleton, Colo. A teacher and 14 students, including the two teen gunmen, died in that incident The girl drew up a hit list of victims, Young said, which included an assistant principal, a math teacher, a school resource officer, two security guards and at least three named students. The last word on her hit list was 'Trees," which Young said was a coded reference to black students. "The sabotage at the end of the year will be known as the South Florida massacre," the 13-year-old wrote in the April letter.

She asked friends to help her kill "anyone who crosses our paths," Young said. The girl's attorney, Kenneth Hassett, said the incident was an child's attempt to get attention. ThaLadgw Sheila Clifton comforts her daughter Jessica, 1 2, as father Steve Clifton looks on Thursday outside the courthouse in Bartow. 'This is a day of justice for Maddie," Sheila Clifton said after a jury convicted Joshua Phillips of killing their daughter Maddie last year. vengeance," defense attorney Richard Nichols said.

approves launch of delayed X-ray observatory As Columbia carries the satellite aloft, the shuttle's five-member crew will be led by 42-year-old Air Force colonel and test pilot Eileen Collins. Homton Chronlcl tem, failed to separate into its two components, and the military satellite was lost. NASA awaited the outcome of a classified Air Force investigation into the expensive mishap before proceeding with the Chandra mission. At 50,162 pounds and 57 feet, the Chandra observatory and its propulsion system are the largest payload ever flown on a shuttle. A good deal of the mass, 30,600 pounds, belongs to the propulsion system.

The satellite's rocketry is essential to boosting the X-ray observatory to its final destination, an elliptical orbit that will range between 6,200 miles and 87,000 miles above Earth. Collins' crew consists of rookie pilot Jeff Ashby, flight engineer Steve Hawley, mission specialist Catherine "Cady" Coleman and French astronaut Michel Tognini. stood activities around supermassive black holes. Named for the late Indian-born theoretical astrophysicist and Nobel Prize winner Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, the Chandra is a companion to the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990 and the Comp-ton Gamma Ray Observatory launched in 1991. The last of the observatories in the series, the Space Infrared Telescope Facility, is to go up in 2001.

Setbacks over the past year for the Chandra flight added $53-million to the mission's hefty price tag, but space agency managers vowed to correct every difficulty before approving the launch. The latest difficulty arose after the April 9 launch of an Air Force Titan 4 rocket with a missile warning satellite. The Titan's upper stage rocket, which is identical to the Chandra's propulsion sys flights in 1995 and 1997 to Russia's Mir space station. The mission has been delayed for nearly a year by a succession of problems with software and circuitry on the large observatory and most recently by the failure of an identical propulsion system on a military rocket. However, following a lengthy review of preparations on Thursday, NASA shuttle program managers determined each of the difficulties has been resolved and approved the liftoff.

Columbia is scheduled to blast off at 12:36 a.m. EDTonJuly20. The shuttle crew plans to deploy the big observatory within eight hours of launch. Chandra was developed to observe the highest-energy events in the universe and could help astronomers locate the mysterious dark matter that may make up much of the cosmos as well as explain little-under HOUSTON NASA on Thursday formally targeted July 20 for the launch of its Chandra X-ray observatory from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the shuttle Columbia. Columbia's five-member crew will be led by veteran astronaut Eileen Collins, the first wpman to command a crew of space travelers.

"We're very excited about this flight," said Collins, a 42-year-old Air Force colonel and test pilot. Collins co-piloted shuttle I LOCAL NEWS Cross-dresser guilty of misdemeanor mi restroom then questioned why Hagan, who is undergoing sex-change treatments, was in the women's restroom. "What are you doing in there?" Dunham recalled them shouting. Dunham testified that Partsch, who had been drinking, said "let's get him," and kicked in the door to the stall Hagan was using. Those statements are the root of Hagan's defense against charges that he intended to send Partsch to the hospital when he slugged her once in the face.

The battery charge carries a jail sentence of less than a year; a felony conviction could have meant 10. By GEOFF DOUGHERTY and COURTNEY WEILL Times Staff Writers NEW PORT RICHEY Patrick Hagan goes by "Patty" and wears pantyhose and a skirt. But the 6-foot-3, 280-pound Hagan's punch packed enough of a wallop to knock loose five of Cheryl Partsch's teeth in a dispute over whether Hagan belonged in the i Vf I i i In closing arguments of the three-day trial, defense lawyer Robert Attridge said Hagan was a victim. He characterized the exchange as a hate crime against those with alternative lifestyles. Hagan felt threatened, Attridge said.

Hagan didn't know he was 10 inches taller and 110 pounds heavier than the woman on the other side of the door, Attridge said. Hagan, a 46-year-old Port Richey resident and a black-belt in tae kown do, defended himself with one quick punch and no women restroom at a Pasco County nightclub. The punch wasn't strong enough or mean enough, though, to convict Hagan of aggravated battery. Instead a six-person jury late Thursday found Hagan guilty of misdemeanor battery, which carries a jail sentence of less than a year. Because of Hagan's prior convictions for illegal dumping and other charges, a felony conviction could have sent him to prison for 10 years.

Times photo JIM DAMASKE Heather Buehler, 17, recently got her pilot's license. She started flying after going on a free ride as part of the Young Eagles program, which aims to encourage young people to take up flying. Saturday, she will take other youths on free rides at Clearwater Airpark. Pilot proves it's never too early to learn By G.G. RIGSBY TUtim Staff Writer i CLEARWATER When 17-year-old Heather Buehler takes ybung people for airplane rides Saturday, she'll be giving back to the program that gave her a flying start i i Buehler, of Clearwater, was 12 when she took her first airplane ride a free ride at Clearwater Airpark given as part of the Experimental Aircraft Association's Young Eagles program.

She liked it so much and proved so proficient that the flying community adopted her. Pilots and instructors helped her find jobs and donated money, airplane time and instruction time. At 16, when she had only six hours of flight time in small airplanes, she flew a plane by herself. In mid-June, at 17, she had 55 hours of practice time in airplanes and passed a flight exam and earned her pilot's license. That's the earliest age the Federal Aviation Administration awards pilot's licenses.

On Saturday, Buehler will join about a dozen pilots who will donate their time, airplanes and fuel to give free rides to youths ages 7 to 15 as part of the Young Eagles program. The goal of the program is to expose youth to general aviation and perhaps lead some to careers in aviation. Buehler, a senior at Largo High School, wants to attend Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach and become a corporate pilot. Patrick Hagan Plane rides Parents with children ages 7 to 15 who want to go on a free airplane ride should show up at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Clearwater Airpark.

Volunteer pilots, Heather Buehler included, will take the youths on free, 1 0-minute flights. intent to cause great bodily harm, Attridge said. But the prosecution argued that Hagan slugged Partsch without reason. Assistant State Attorney Scott Andringa's message was clear throughout his closing argument: Hagan was angry; and he was wrong. In court Thursday, Hagan wore pantyhose, a violet blouse and fingernail polish that matched the highlights of his floral-print skirt.

The trial has featured testimony about the lifestyle of transsexuals, and Thursday was no different Witnesses testified that Hagan goes by the name "Patty," and that they considered Hagan to be a woman. The gender-switching was enough to briefly confound Andringa. "She just punched the first person she saw that's what you're saying Mr. Hagan did," Andringa asked Dunham. "She was only protecting herself," Dunham replied.

Self-defense or not, Partsch said she doesn't expect to easily forget her night at BTs. "I keep getting headaches so bad," Partsch said. "I get nauseous every day. It comes from my head and my jaw. So I'll never be done with it." Even so, friends of Hagan reacted strongly to the verdict.

"It's totally wrong," said Joseph "Jo Jo" Podolski, a drag show performer who witnessed the 1997 incident. Podolski said he thinks the jury was too old and conservative to have sympathy for Hagan and other witnesses involved in the transsexual community. "He was just trying to protect himself-" said Podolski. Partsch said the verdict didn't satisfy her. "I think he should have to feel suffering like I have," she said.

"But it's better than nothing. He's guilty. I'll take it." The confrontation between Hagan and Partsch happened at BTs lounge in Port Richey, a bar with a reputation for catering to alternative lifestyles. When Hagan went there dressed as a woman, he didn't stand out. That was true until the night of Nov.

15, 1997, witnesses at his battery trial testified Thursday. On that night, one of Hagan's friends said, he was greeted by a barrage of insults when he walked into the women's restroom. One woman called Hagan a derogatory name, said witness Donna L. Dunham. A group of people in the accident than an airplane accident, since pilots take more training before getting their licenses than drivers do.

Taking enough lessons to get a pilot's license generally costs about $4,000. In addition to getting help from those in the flying community, Buehler earned money to pay for lessons by doing chores around the house, babysitting, cutting the grass around her ultralight instructor's plane and, more recently, working at the airport. Buehler wants young people to realize that flying is like a sport and that it takes dedication and perseverance. It's also fun. "It's a thrill ride every time I go up," she said, "no matter what I do." The local EAA chapter's Young Eagles program began in 1994.

Buehler is the first young person to follow through and earn a pilot's license, said Buz Heuchan, who heads the Young Eagles program. Buehler got some of her feel for flying small airplanes by flying an ultralight a small, lightweight aircraft with her father, Fred Buehler. Buehler's parents say they worry more about her getting in a car a.