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00:05A fatal fall in a South Carolina mansion.
00:09Public safety communication, this is Amber.
00:12A woman came running out and said her husband fell down the steps and she thinks he's dead.
00:15She's hysterical. I think he might be gone.
00:19A life taken in a heartbeat.
00:22I couldn't speak. I had to hand the phone to my husband because I couldn't speak.
00:28It was not news that I was prepared to hear.
00:33Was it simply down to natural causes?
00:36She had said that he'd had a heart attack and collapsed and died at the bottom of the stairs.
00:42Or murder.
00:44I did not kill my husband.
01:09My brother Stephen DeVaya Clayton was born on May 1st, 1954.
01:15Stephen was always the biggest personality in the room.
01:18He was just full of joy and Stephen was just extremely gregarious and he was the type of person that
01:27when you meet him, you automatically knew that you were friends with him.
01:33He was an accounting major at Florida State University and from there it became an interesting avenue for him to
01:43open physical therapy centers inside of hospitals and have them separately run.
01:49And so he began to do this with hospitals all around the country.
01:54My brother had great success business wise.
01:58His dream was to retire at 40, but he was able to retire at 41 and start traveling and doing
02:05all the things that he wanted to do.
02:08And what Stephen Clayton wanted to do was inspire others to success.
02:14After Stephen retired, Stephen was a mentor to many young people and started out in college mentoring younger college grads.
02:25And from there, the mentorship relationship grew through college and then into business.
02:31And Stephen was with them all the way into their success.
02:35Stephen also liked to throw a party.
02:39Stephen loved to entertain people.
02:41And one of the days that was very special for him was the 4th of July.
02:45And he always had something very special planned.
02:49Live music at his house.
02:52Fireworks.
02:54He loved to entertain and he loved to have fun with people.
02:58And he's the kind of man that was always there for his friends.
03:04Stephen also cared deeply for his family.
03:07My dad passed away 11 months before William and I got married.
03:12And Steve not only walked me down the aisle, but he also served as my husband's best man.
03:19My dad told me, before he passed, to take care of my sister, to honor you, and he loved you
03:31very much.
03:33Despite Stephen's love for his family and friends, his own romantic life was far from perfect.
03:40He was married six times.
03:42And a lot of that was because there was just no Stephen around to really keep the relationships together.
03:49Because he was traveling at least three weeks out of every month.
03:54So it put a little bit of a dent in some of his personal relationships, his marriages, etc.
04:01But in 2010, Stephen Clayton, now living in North Carolina, announced that he had met someone special.
04:09Steve said that he had met someone called Lana online through a dating app.
04:14Lana worked as a nurse and was originally from Oklahoma.
04:17She had kids from a previous relationship, and she told Steve that she'd been an Air Force veteran and that
04:23she loved the outdoors.
04:25He loved her so much, he called her his Lana Sue from Oklahoma.
04:30And I think he wanted to make this the rest of his life.
04:37They were married in November of 2013.
04:42The wedding took place at their house in North Carolina.
04:46It was a beautiful ceremony outdoors, surrounded by Steve's beautiful gardens.
04:53Stephen was so excited to be marrying Lana.
04:56He felt that he had found somebody, a small-town girl, that he was going to finally be able to
05:02settle in with for the rest of his life.
05:05Soon after, the couple moved to the banks of Lake Wiley in York County, South Carolina.
05:12It's a beautiful piece of property, and it was right on the lake.
05:17And the home itself was just, it was very lovely, very colonial style, in the style of Mount Vernon.
05:23It was the perfect property for Stephen to hold his legendary July 4th party.
05:30Every time 4th of July came around, Stephen was just in his element.
05:33And it was just going to be as grand an event as he always had every time he got people
05:40together.
05:44But after one event in 2018, Stephen wasn't his usual sprightly self.
05:50Steve starts to feel a little bit under the weather.
05:53He's just hosted all of these big July 4th parties he's known for, throwing these really epic bashes for it.
05:59But he's all of a sudden bedbound, feeling really dizzy, sick, really, really unwell.
06:06As he fell ill, he even stopped communicating with his beloved sister.
06:11The last time that Stephen actually replied to a message was on the 16th of July.
06:17And on the 17th of July, I texted him, and he didn't get right back to me, which was very
06:23odd.
06:24And then I started calling, and there was no answer.
06:28It was going straight to voicemail.
06:31Despite not hearing from Stephen, Rosie felt reassured that Lana was by his side.
06:36Lana was a nurse, and that was the thing that made me feel the most confident about them being together.
06:42He had someone by his side who was trained to help in any sort of emergency situation.
06:49So to me, not hearing from him for a couple of days wasn't something that I was going to be
06:54concerned about.
06:57On July 21st, five days since Rosie had last heard from her brother, a motorcyclist was passing by the Clayton's
07:05mansion when all hell broke loose.
07:11Public safety communication. This is Amber.
07:14Yes, ma'am. I'm down at Lake Wiley.
07:16I was just riding by, and a woman came running out and said her husband fell down the steps, and
07:20she thinks he's dead.
07:23She said he had vertigo. She's hysterical. I think he might be gone.
07:36Within minutes, emergency services arrived on the scene with body cams, capturing shocking footage that would eventually be seen by
07:45South Carolina's chief prosecutor for York and Union County, solicitor Kevin Brackett.
07:51At the bottom of the main flight of stairs leading from the second floor down to the first, they found
07:57the body of Stephen Clayton.
07:59Given the position they found him in at the bottom of the stairs, it's quite possible that he fell some
08:04distance down the stairs and ended up at the foot of the stairs.
08:07In a situation like this, the emergency responders realized that heroic measures to try to restore life to Mr. Clayton
08:18would be futile, that he had been deceased for some time and there was no bringing him back.
08:28As her husband's body lay in the hall, an officer tried to calm a hysterical Lana.
08:34Ma'am, I'm Sergeant Day. I'm going to be here for just a little while until the coroner gets there
08:43and transporting those things.
08:51When they asked her about him, she told them that he had been sick for the last several days, that
08:58he suffered from bouts of vertigo, and that he had been bedridden, essentially.
09:04And that, uh, at about 11 o'clock that morning, she had left the house to go outside to do
09:09some yard work, um, and when she came back an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes later,
09:14she found her husband at the bottom of the stairs.
09:18Ms. Clayton, you were outside? You were working outside?
09:21I was mowing the lawn real quick, and when I came in, it started talking about that.
09:26I'm so sorry.
09:27I tried to put a blanket underneath, and I tried to grab his face.
09:31It was a little bit like that.
09:35As officers listened to Lana Clayton, Stephen's police officer nephew Nick arrived at the house after hearing of his uncle's
09:43passing.
09:44He heard the address come over the radio and immediately recognized it, and so when he arrived there, my brother
09:54had passed away.
09:56He was dead on the floor in front of the stairs.
10:00The scene pointed to a tragic accident.
10:04The deputy coroner arrived to figure out exactly how Stephen had died.
10:16She mentioned for me when she came to the house, as I said, where I'm so sorry.
10:21Okay.
10:23Initial signs suggested a fatal fall down the stairs, but the deputy coroner also noticed that Stephen's face had a
10:31grayish pallor and concluded his probable cause of death.
10:36Apparently, the coroner had seen a discoloration of his skin and immediately thought that it was a heart attack, a
10:43simple matter of him having a heart attack and falling down the stairs.
10:49When the deputy coroner offered to take Stephen Clayton's body to the morgue to run some tests, Lana made a
10:56snap decision.
10:57She indicated that she did not want an autopsy performed.
11:00She wanted to have him cremated, so she asked that he be taken to a local funeral home.
11:05She gave them the name of the funeral home, and the body was removed at that point.
11:10Although Stephen's body was already on its way to the funeral home, there was still one close family member who
11:17had not even been informed of his death.
11:20Nick suggested and said, why hasn't Chris got here yet?
11:24And he came to learn Chris, who was the nephew of Stephen and very, very close, like a son to
11:29Stephen, had not even been called.
11:33So he told Lana, we need to call Chris. He needs to know.
11:37And when he said that to Lana, she went berserk.
11:42She did not want Christopher to be there. She did not want to notify Christopher.
11:47That was an outrage to Nick, because he knew of their closeness.
11:52Even though Lana was very insistent that Christopher not be called, Nick did the right thing, and he called Christopher
11:59immediately.
12:00When Christopher learned of Stephen's death, he relayed the sad news to Rosie.
12:05The first thing I heard, my nephew crying like a baby, saying, Uncle Steve is gone. Uncle Steve is gone.
12:16And I couldn't speak. I had to hand the phone to my husband because I couldn't speak.
12:24It was not news that I was prepared to hear.
12:28He was a very good person.
12:31And he was my best friend.
12:35And every single day I miss him.
12:47After informing Rosie and the rest of Stephen Clayton's extended family in Florida about his sudden death from a heart
12:53attack,
12:54which may have led to a fatal fall down the stairs,
12:57Stephen's nephew Chris went to the family's South Carolina home to be with his grieving family.
13:05Christopher arrived at the house, his wife met him there, and so he was coming to comfort Lana.
13:11And Chris continued to try to reassure her by saying,
13:15You don't have to worry about anything, Lana.
13:18Uncle Steve has everything written down in his will.
13:23And she immediately told him,
13:25There is no will.
13:28And this could not have been further from the truth.
13:32Not only did Christopher know about the will, Christopher had seen the will.
13:36It was so large, it was practically the size of a ream of paper.
13:41Lana continued to insist that there was no will.
13:45To the point that she became infuriated with Christopher.
13:50It was clear to them at that point, something was off.
13:54This wasn't right, and this needed to be looked at further.
13:58You would imagine that having been married for five years,
14:01that Lana would be aware of the existence of a will.
14:04Especially, you know, when her husband is financially very successful.
14:09It does suggest a real disconnect between the family unit and Lana.
14:13And that kind of suggests either that they're both receiving different information,
14:17or that there's something else going on there that's kind of hidden beneath the surface.
14:21Thrown by Lana Clayton's denial of the existence of a will,
14:26Stephen's nephews went upstairs to check out his bedroom,
14:29where they found a shocking scene.
14:32In the bedroom, they see the bed is in disarray.
14:35The bed is filthy. There's vomit on the bed.
14:38The mattress is soaked with urine.
14:40So soaked that the urine has actually started to puddle beneath the mattress underneath the bed.
14:48The thing you have to know about Stephen is that he was an extremely fastidious individual.
14:54He was very clean.
14:55He would sometimes shower twice a day.
14:57To be lying in a pool of his own bodily fluids
15:01is not only an undignified situation for any human being,
15:05but it is absolutely not one that my brother would find himself in.
15:11The second thing was they couldn't find his phone anywhere.
15:14It wasn't in the bedroom, which also struck them as odd,
15:18because he was glued to his phone, and if he was bedridden for several days,
15:22his phone should have been right there next to him, but it wasn't.
15:25So things were really jumping out to Nick at this point.
15:28Why hadn't Lana called 911 herself?
15:31There were two phones in the house at the time.
15:34Why'd she have to run out onto the street asking someone else to call 911?
15:38It was also really strange that Lana didn't give Steve CPR herself.
15:43She was a nurse.
15:44She was medically trained to know how to do that.
15:46This was really unusual.
15:49Despite Nick's misgivings, the official verdict was that Stephen's fatal fall
15:54was caused by a heart attack, and no foul play was involved.
15:58This was not a suspicious enough situation.
16:01They felt that they could rely upon the coroner
16:05and the coroner's perspective that because of his discoloration in his face,
16:12that this was clearly a heart attack and that he had fallen down the stairs.
16:18So they had no reason to look further into it.
16:25Later that evening, Stephen's sister Rosie called Lana to ask how Stephen had gotten so ill
16:30and why she hadn't heard from him in the days leading up to his death.
16:35I finally got a return call from Lana after having called her numerous times,
16:40and it was approximately 3 o'clock in the morning, and she was inebriated.
16:46She was angry, and she had no empathy for the fact that I had just lost my brother.
16:54She was livid that Steve's family members were letting her know that there was a will
17:02when she claimed that she knew for a fact that there wasn't.
17:08I asked her what was going on prior to this, and she told me that he had been feeling ill,
17:14and I asked her, where were you?
17:17And she said, I was out mowing the lawn.
17:20And I said, but aren't you telling me that he was violently ill?
17:24If he was violently ill, why were you outside mowing the lawn?
17:27And just as a knee-jerk reaction, she said, because he was being so needy.
17:35When I asked her why it was that I wasn't able to hear from him when I texted him or
17:39called him,
17:41she said somewhat nonchalantly, I'm not sure, maybe it's at the bottom of the lake.
17:47That almost made my heart stop, because I knew that my brother wouldn't be without a phone.
17:52That was a moment when I felt something was terribly wrong.
17:58As the call progressed, Rosie became even more shocked by what Lana Clayton was saying.
18:05Lana tried to tell me that Steve was a hardcore drug user.
18:11I knew my brother, and he was not a hardcore drug user.
18:15The reason why she started to say what she said about the drug use is as an excuse to have
18:20him cremated right away,
18:21so it wouldn't be embarrassing to his family that they would find hardcore drugs in his system.
18:28There's now this accumulation of kind of unusual behaviors coming from Lana around the circumstances of this death,
18:34and it is driving this kind of wedge between her and the family.
18:39Later that day, after Rosie's early hours phone call, Lana also spoke to Stephen's nephew Chris,
18:47banning him and others from coming to the family house.
18:51She said only her children were allowed in the house.
18:54She didn't want family members there, and she said that there was going to be a memorial service at some
19:00point,
19:00and that's when I could come.
19:02Aside from keeping everybody in the family away, she immediately gave away all of his clothes.
19:09My brother had a really lovely collection of watches.
19:13None of that was found.
19:14My brother was a collector of art and sculpture.
19:17These things were also missing.
19:20Imagine my brother hadn't even been dead for 24 hours,
19:24and she's already getting rid of all the clothes.
19:28This doesn't make sense to me.
19:30This doesn't make any sense at all.
19:33Steve's sister Rosie was well within her right to be upset and confused by Lana selling off all of his
19:38property so fast.
19:39It is very unusual.
19:41It's very fast.
19:42And especially when he has other family members who might want to be involved in that process.
19:46On the other hand, you could say that actually this behavior is that of a traumatized woman
19:51trying to rid herself of the reminders of her husband that are surrounding her.
19:56So there are explanations, but it is still unusual behavior.
20:01Suspicious of Lana's behavior and the state of Stephen Clayton's bedroom,
20:06his nephews Nick and Chris decided to take action to find out if it was just a tragic accident or
20:12something more sinister.
20:13Could he even have been pushed?
20:16They wanted to get to the truth.
20:19They did not believe that Steve had died of natural causes,
20:23and they wanted to get a secret autopsy done before Lana got Steve cremated.
20:28Nick, of his own volition, went to the York County Sheriff's Office and laid out his concerns,
20:33told them why he felt something was wrong,
20:36and asked for their assistance in getting an autopsy.
20:40The coroner listened to their concerns and agreed that this was a case that merited further inquiry.
20:45So she directed that the body be retrieved from the funeral home,
20:50taken to the morgue, and ordered an autopsy to be performed on it.
20:53But Nick had one more request, and that was to run toxicology tests on Steve's blood.
21:00A toxicologist is a specific type of scientist who examines bodily fluids
21:05to determine the presence of foreign chemicals or foreign agents
21:10that may have also impacted or caused, brought about the death of someone.
21:15So a toxicology was ordered in this case, and blood was sent off to a toxicologist.
21:22While they waited for Stephen's body to be collected from the funeral home for the autopsy,
21:27his police officer nephew Nick decided to dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding his uncle's death.
21:35My nephew felt that it was imperative that we have as much information as possible
21:41and as quickly as possible.
21:44Nick called some contacts in the police department to try and get them to investigate what had happened,
21:49but he hit a brick wall.
21:51He then decided to hire a private investigator to look around into some of the circumstances surrounding Steve's death.
21:58The investigator found that Lana was trying to liquidate Steve's asset.
22:04They also found that she had a fire pit in her garden,
22:07and she had been burning various documents that belonged to Steve.
22:12Everything that was in my brother's filing cabinets,
22:15and there were two large filing cabinets,
22:17was all dumped into the fire pit.
22:22As the investigation continued,
22:25Stephen Clayton's autopsy results were released to police,
22:28including his nephew Nick.
22:31Steve's autopsy results came back and showed that he had had heart disease,
22:36which supported the initial theory that he had died of natural causes.
22:39But Steve's family would have to wait a lot longer for the toxicology report,
22:43which takes a lot longer to come back.
22:46Meanwhile, Stephen's body was returned to the funeral home for cremation,
22:50and on August 4th, two weeks after Stephen died,
22:54Lana held a private memorial service at the family home.
22:57There were a lot of Steve's mentees there, and Steve's closest friends were there.
23:03But there was just an air of something bizarre.
23:07Lana's behavior at the memorial was very out of the ordinary.
23:11She wore a red and white dress, sun dress.
23:17She didn't act like a person who had just lost somebody that was dear to them.
23:24She didn't interact much with many of the guests.
23:27She only interacted with the neighbors.
23:29There were many of us that had a tremendous amount of suspicion,
23:32but there was absolutely nothing that we could do until the toxicology reports came back.
23:39About two weeks after Stephen's memorial,
23:42the report was finally released to Stephen's nephews, Nick and Chris.
23:47It revealed that he had the presence of a large amount of tetrahydrosaline,
23:54which is the active ingredient in Vizine in his system, 68 nanograms per milliliter,
24:00which was a lethal load of tetrahydrosaline.
24:06Vizine is an eyedrop, but there are many different products that serve this purpose
24:12that have tetrahydrosaline in them.
24:14When you use eyedrops to get the red out of your eyes,
24:16that's the thing in the eyedrop that actually does the job.
24:21It's a vasoconstrictor.
24:22It takes blood vessels that are expanded and narrows them down.
24:27It does the same thing when you ingest it,
24:30and your blood vessels will constrict.
24:32It can make you sick by nauseating you.
24:35It can make you dizzy.
24:36It can make you pass out, and ultimately it can kill you
24:40because your blood vessels are too narrow
24:43and your heart is working too hard to try to pump blood
24:46through tubes that have been narrowed by this drug.
24:48Using eyedrops appropriately,
24:52you would expect to find 0.38 nanograms per milliliter in the body.
24:59Stephen had 68 nanograms per milliliter,
25:03which is 1,000 times more than what you would normally find.
25:06Now the question arises,
25:09how did that tetrahydrosaline get into Mr. Clayton's body?
25:12And that is not something that would naturally occur.
25:16So somebody must have put it into him.
25:20The morning that the toxicology report became available,
25:23the phone rang, and it was my nephew Christopher.
25:27And through fighting back tears and anger,
25:32he screamed,
25:33she did it, she killed him,
25:36she did it, she killed him.
25:38The report really said that my brother had been murdered,
25:42that he had been intentionally poisoned.
25:45I could barely speak with anyone
25:48because there was no way
25:49that anyone would want to cause that kind of harm
25:52to someone as kind and generous and loving as Stephen.
26:04It was initially believed that Stephen Clayton
26:08had a heart attack
26:08and potentially fell to his death
26:11at his South Carolina home.
26:13But a toxicology test on his blood
26:16shockingly revealed that he was actually killed
26:19by a lethal overdose
26:20of a chemical called tetrahydrosaline,
26:23also known as THZ.
26:26Commonly found in eye drops,
26:29THZ constricts blood vessels,
26:31causing severe nausea,
26:33extremely low blood pressure,
26:35and in Stephen's case, death.
26:39When that toxicology report came back,
26:42the police had something definitive.
26:45Up until that point, they didn't have much,
26:47but this report now showed
26:49that Steve had been poisoned.
26:52Police were now dealing with a potential murder.
26:56But did the poison alone kill Stephen?
26:59Or was he even poisoned and then pushed to his death?
27:03Investigators were determined to find out.
27:08On August 17th, 2018,
27:10the York County Sheriff's Office launched an investigation into Steve's death.
27:16Twelve days later, on August 29th, 2018,
27:20just over one month after Stephen died,
27:23his wife, Lana Clayton,
27:25was called to the York County Coroner's Office.
27:29The coroner and the sheriff's office agreed that the best way to conduct the interview would be just to bring
27:34her in for the purpose of discussing with the coroner the results of the autopsy and toxicology.
27:44The coroner and the sheriff's office did not want her to know that the sheriff's office was involved at that
27:48point.
27:49They didn't want to arouse her suspicions.
27:51So the police would not be in the room where the initial interview was conducted.
27:56They would be in an adjacent room monitoring and listening to what was going on.
28:02One of the most interesting features of the interview with the coroner was the fact that completely unsolicited,
28:11Lana volunteered that her husband used to put a couple of drops of Visine in his morning coffee to help
28:19keep regular,
28:20that he used that to sort of help him move his bowels each morning.
28:23Somebody one time told him that Visine would help him go back and then he'd put like two drops in
28:28his coffee.
28:29This was not responsive to anything in particular at this point in time.
28:34She didn't even know that the toxicology report revealed what it did.
28:40In terms of human behavior, if you're volunteering information before being asked about it,
28:45it's often because you're implying your innocence because you don't believe this is information that can implicate you.
28:51So in this case where Lana is volunteering information about the eye drops,
28:56that implies that she's trying to reassert her innocence and the innocence of this chemical being in Steve's system.
29:04Not long after Lana's admission, detectives entered the room.
29:17When the investigators entered the room, Lana barely flinched.
29:21It was as though she had been expecting them to come.
29:25Somehow or other, there was a large amount of Visine in his system.
29:29So that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of.
29:32I know he put the Visine in his coffee. He puts it in there every day.
29:38What do you know about it?
29:40What do I know about it?
29:42I know it makes sure you have diarrhea.
29:47Detectives began to pick holes in Lana's story.
29:51How could Steve have been putting these drops of Visine into his coffee when she alleged that he was so
29:57sick and bedridden?
29:59It was at this point that Lana's tact totally changed.
30:03She then started to blame Steve and to attack his character.
30:07He can be really nasty.
30:10He was really verbally abusive, you know, calling him names, calling him...
30:18Like what were you calling him?
30:19Oh, I don't know.
30:21Stupid.
30:23I don't know.
30:24Just all kinds of things.
30:27I could see it escalating.
30:29He's a nervous.
30:30Right.
30:31I would just, you know, try and stay on his way.
30:37In criminology, there's a theory called ideal victim theory that basically says that the more tarnished someone's character is, the
30:46less readily they're given status as a legitimate victim.
30:50Basically meaning that if someone has performed negative acts, the general population have less sympathy for them as a victim.
30:58And so I think this is Lana's attempt to basically reduce public sympathy for Steve, so people stop looking into
31:05it so much and stop asking as many questions.
31:10The information she's providing about his character doesn't really move the needle on whether or not he was murdered or
31:17how he was murdered.
31:18All of that is irrelevant to the central question of how did that Visine, how did that THZ get into
31:24his system?
31:25Right now, the death is suspicious in nature.
31:28There's only two people in the house.
31:29It was you and him.
31:31I know.
31:31Did you make his coffee for him?
31:33No, he made his coffee.
31:35Everybody keeps asking me, you know, about the coffee, and I know they're wanting to know about the Visine.
31:42I feel like you guys are, you know, doing your job and you're, you know, wondering if I killed my
31:47husband, and I did not kill my husband.
31:51As the interview progressed, Lana became more and more aware that she was the focus of the interview, and she
31:59was an object of suspicion.
32:01And the interview there at the coroner's office terminated when she invoked her right to counsel and said she did
32:07not wish to answer any further questions without an attorney present.
32:13Later that day, investigators searched the Claytons' home, looking for eyedrops containing THZ.
32:21They would be looking for anything that had any Visine residue in it, glasses, cups, anything like that that would
32:29help inform the investigation on the circumstances of this man's death.
32:35The police were able to find some Visine in the house, not unusual amounts, but the bulk of the item
32:43seized revolved around digital evidence that would help give a better understanding of what had taken place.
32:52At about 6.15, Detective Motz, who had been at the coroner's office, arrived at the house, and the search
32:58was concluding at about that time, shortly thereafter.
33:01While he was at the house, he was approached by Lana, who asked him if she could speak to him.
33:09He started a recorder and recorded the conversation that took place.
33:16I told him I wanted a divorce, and so we've been, you know, just been cold in here and arguing
33:24and everything, and after he had that incident, which he said it was vertigo, and I was taking care of
33:33him and everything, but I was still so angry, angry with him.
33:38And my girlfriend at work told me, you want to get even with somebody, you know, put Visine in a
33:43drink, it'll cause diarrhea.
33:44And when I saw that Visine on the table, it just came back to me, and I just took and
33:49squirted it.
33:50And what did you squirt it into?
33:52His water.
33:53Into his water?
33:54I did it.
33:59Lana admitted that she had, in fact, administered the Visine to her husband, Stephen, that she had been the one
34:05who gave it to him.
34:08It was very helpful that she admitted this, first, because it resolved the issue of who gave him the THZ,
34:15but secondly, because it did so in a recorded fashion that would be incontrovertible in court.
34:24At that point, we had enough information and evidence to file murder charges against her.
34:32The police were set to arrest Lana for Steve's murder, but then they receive a call from one of her
34:38neighbors saying that Lana had been found unconscious.
34:41When the police go there, the gas has been left on, and Lana is surrounded by sleeping tablets.
34:58After going to Lana Clayton's home to arrest her for the murder of her husband, Stephen, and finding her unconscious
35:05after an apparent suicide attempt, police rushed to save her.
35:11When they arrived at the house, they found her upstairs in the bed, unresponsive.
35:16They found suicide notes, apologizing for her behavior.
35:20They were able to get her to the hospital.
35:22She was treated there.
35:23She was not in serious condition.
35:25After a few hours, they were able to take her to the jail and book her in.
35:29Lana's attempt at taking her own life really implies different things based on whether she's guilty or not.
35:35If she's innocent, then this is a woman who has experienced significant trauma.
35:40But if she's guilty, then this is someone perhaps trying to escape from the mess that they've created and don't
35:48seem that they can get out of.
35:50On August 31st, Lana was taken to York County Detention Center, where she was then charged with murder and tampering
35:57with a food or drug.
36:00News of Lana's arrest spread to Stephen Clayton's family and friends.
36:06If you ask me how I felt at that moment, for me, all the questions just kept getting bigger and
36:13bigger.
36:13Because at that moment, she became a real live monster.
36:18A monster capable of taking away a person who had represented so much good in my life and so much
36:25good in the lives of so many people.
36:29After her arrest, Lana continued to disparage Stephen.
36:33She continued to paint a picture of an abusive person and make herself out to be the victim of his
36:41abuse.
36:41She claimed that Steve had been emotionally and physically abusive to her, that he was a heavy drug user, and
36:49that he had viewed child abuse images.
36:52But the toxicology report only showed that he had a small amount of marijuana and prescription to Mazepam in his
36:58system.
36:59And when investigators checked his computer, there was no evidence to support Lana's allegations that he had child abuse images.
37:08She started accusing him of being an abusive husband.
37:11So one of the things we wanted to find out was what the other women he had been married to
37:16had experienced.
37:18None of the wives that he had previously been married to ever indicated that he was abusive.
37:23They characterized him as a loving, caring husband, and they said their time with him was some of the best
37:28in their lives.
37:28She said that he was abusive, but at the same time she would send me text messages saying how very
37:34much in love they were.
37:37So I think she was grasping at any sympathy that she could get from any person, and none of it
37:45made sense.
37:50With Lana in custody awaiting trial, police checked through their records for any previously reported incidents at the Clayton home.
37:59There was only one when we did that, one incident that the police had been called out to the Clayton
38:05household.
38:06And when we researched that incident report and read through it, the already bizarre case became even more unusual.
38:16What we came to learn after reading this incident report was that Lana shot Stephen in the back of the
38:22head with a crossbow in 2016 at about 3 o'clock in the morning while he lay in bed asleep.
38:30Luckily, it only grazed him.
38:32When she was probed about this, officers said, had you had an argument?
38:36She said, no, everything was fine. Steve was just asleep.
38:39He corroborated that, said it was just an accident, so the case was closed.
38:42Steve's reaction to the crossbow incident throws into question Lana's account of him being violent towards her.
38:49The fact that he was so readily happy to let that slide, a really serious and significant incident.
38:56But then on the other hand, you do have to wonder if it was kind of representative of an extreme
39:02level of violence that was becoming quite normalized in their relationship.
39:05We were very shocked to find out that this had occurred a couple of years prior.
39:10The fact that we now knew that she had been doing this well prior to what she did to take
39:17his life was just another reason to feel sick in the middle of our gut.
39:24Because there were just too many situations where I would get a phone call from my brother after having tried
39:30to reach him for a day or two.
39:32And he'd call me and say, you're not going to believe this. I was asleep for two days. I had
39:37the worst sunstroke.
39:38But now, looking back, she was checking to see what was the dose that was going to take his life.
39:46The prosecution now had a very strong case against Lana Clayton.
39:50They had the toxicology report that showed those fatal amounts of vicine in Steve's bloodstream.
39:57They had been administered to him against his will.
39:59They then also had the fact that Steve had been bedridden for so long and his mobile phone had just
40:05gone missing.
40:06So the question becomes, why did she do this?
40:09Well, every woman that he'd ever been married to, he had a prenuptial agreement.
40:14He was a very wealthy man.
40:16So we believe one existed with Lana as well, but that it was destroyed by Lana after he died, along
40:23with the will.
40:24If there's no will in South Carolina and you die without a will, everything you have goes to your spouse.
40:33She's the one who stood to benefit because she was going to be the sole beneficiary of his estate.
40:39And that's why she did what she did.
40:42Our options at this point was proceed on a murder charge, which if that was going to happen, she would
40:49go to trial.
40:50And then the only other option was try to come to some sort of agreement with the defense that would
40:55expose her to what was the equivalent of life without having to go to trial.
41:00And we would spare the victim's family, the rigors of trial, the trauma of going through this detailed description of
41:07what their loved one went through.
41:09We were not going to let this monster go free.
41:14And there was a great chance that she could have.
41:17We took the wise counsel of the people in the solicitor's office and decided that we would go ahead and
41:25accept a plea for voluntary manslaughter.
41:29By accepting a guilty plea, even of a lower level offense, that means the family have secured that there will
41:35be some form of justice.
41:37Whereas going to trial on a no guilty plea on a circumstantial evidence case means that they'd run the risk
41:43of there not being any justice served.
41:48On January 16th, 2020, Lana Clayton pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and tampering with a food or drug.
41:57Our objective was to secure a sentence that was tantamount to life.
42:02And ultimately, the judge concluded that a 25-year no-parole sentence was appropriate, so she will remain in jail
42:09until she's 73 years old.
42:13We'll never know for sure what took place in that house, but I believe that Stephen Clayton was poisoned over
42:20several days.
42:23It was clear that she had basically held him hostage, captive, using this chemical before he finally succumbed to the
42:33poison that was in his system and collapsed,
42:35perhaps falling down the last few stairs, landing at the foot of the stairs where he was found.
42:42This was a prolonged, torturous experience for Stephen Clayton, and a horrible one that she was the mastermind and architect
42:52for and wholly responsible.
42:57At court, Rosie and other members of Stephen's family were given the chance to read out their victim impact statements
43:04in front of the now convicted murderer, Lana Clayton.
43:08There was a lot of pain, and at the same time, there was a feeling of such betrayal that I
43:18could have trusted somebody with the life of someone so dear to me.
43:23It was a ruse.
43:26The fact that she was a person trained in life savings, she used her training to cause another person harm.
43:35She stole him from me, and my heart pities the agony that she must have to face, not just in
43:45this world, but in whatever world is to come.
43:49But from my own brother, I learned to forgive.
43:56And I think that that's the only place that I've been able to find peace.
44:07Steve is going to be remembered by everyone who loved him for his joy and his laughter.
44:13Steve wasn't happy unless he was making someone else happy.
44:17And that joy is my brother's greatest legacy.
44:20The joy that he brought to so many people, and all of them think about him and pay that forward.
44:27And that joy is my shepherd.
44:57It's my shepherd.
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