October 4, 2022 • 26 mins
Today's guests are producers Stephanie Lydecker and Jeff Shane.
When a beautiful mansion turns into a heinous crime scene, the police uncover shocking secrets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
(00:25):
Today's guests are true crime producers Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff
Shane Episode forty seven The Case of the Eye Drops,
the Staircase, and the Copycat Killer. Steve Clayton was always
looking for more. Growing up in Florida. He dealt with
(00:47):
childhood hardships, but was committed to making something of himself.
Steve worked his way through college as a construction laborer.
After graduating, he became a well respected accountant in North Carolina, NA.
But Steve had bigger aspirations for his life. He had
an idea for a business in the nineteen eighties and
ended up quitting his job and creating a highly successful
(01:09):
physical therapy business that targeted sports therapy. Described as a
visionary and a brilliant business strategist who had a passion
for learning and critical thinking, Steve's idea took off, and
he was able to retire in nine at the age
of forty. And yet through all the success, Steve still
wanted more. He vowed to travel the world learning more
(01:32):
about wine, music, and art, three things he was passionate about.
He also avowed to think of new business ideas that
would help better people's lives in Everything changed when he
met a woman named Lana online, a nurse by trade.
Lana was sweet and caring. For once in his life,
Steve didn't want anything else with Lana. He had it all.
(01:56):
Three years after meeting, the couple got married and built
a life together. They moved from North to South Carolina
into a palatial waterfront mansion. It came to be known
as the Clayton Estate. Built on the shore of Lake Wiley,
the home boasted expansive views, a chef's kitchen, and a
grand staircase. The home was modeled after President Washington's famed
(02:19):
Mount Vernon estate, and the Clayton's made good use of
the property. Stephen Laana were known to host lavish parties
with friends and family. The home was described as full,
the kind you were always welcome at and wanted to
be in. Here's Jeff While Steve was independently wealthy and
retired because of his physical therapy business, Laana was a
(02:40):
hard working nurse. She was working at the Department of
Veterans Affairs in Charlotte when she met Steve. After the
couple moved from South to North Carolina, she continued to
work at the Veterans Hospital and commuted about forty minutes
each way. Steve family was actually really excited that she
was a nurse because he was a bit of a
bigger guy and not necessarily in the shape, and so
(03:00):
they felt good that he was with someone who was
a medical professional and should something happen to him or
he was in any sort of medical crisis, Lana would
be able to take really good care of him. And
while Lana had been married once before, her close friends
said that she really didn't seem anything but happy when
they met. We're looking at this photograph. They looked so
warm and comfortable together. He's very tall, wearing a white shirt.
(03:23):
She's leaning in. She's a brunette also with her hair
up and long pretty earrings, and they look very at
ease together. Yestef. We'll actually post this picture on our
Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Stephen was described as magnanimous.
He had a huge personality, and not only did he
have a really close circle of friends, but he also
(03:44):
had a very long relationship history. He had been married
six or seven times, so many times that his family
members say they lost count, but they would say that lovingly.
And despite being a serial groom, it seemed that Steve
just really loved being in love and Launa to him,
was his perfect match at last. She was head over
(04:06):
heels in love with him and it was mutual. She
was known to apparently kiss him on the forehead and
often said she loved him. On July, the couple hosted
an epic Fourth of July bash. At the party, as
their loved ones watched, Stephen Laanna danced in the grass.
The night ended in fireworks, but the real show would
(04:28):
come just a few weeks later. On July, Laana was
seen running out of the house desperately waving for help.
She flagged down a neighbor and in a breathless panic,
managed to tell them her husband had fallen down the stairs.
Laana pleaded for the neighbor to call nine on one.
When first responders arrived, they found sixty four year old
(04:50):
Steve Clayton dead at the bottom of the Holmes Grand staircase.
Over him was Laanna sobbing. The immediate aftermath was caught
on police body amps. Take a listen, God, I have
a guilt not checking any sounds of your following or anything.
(05:14):
Pretty much pretty much there's oh no, not at all.
As you can hear, Lana's neighbor is explaining to the
police that she was feeling immediate guilt about her husband's death.
I mean, she was a nurse and his wife, so
I would imagine she would be feeling pretty badly about
not having taken care of him or allowing him to
somehow get in the state that he was in. As
(05:36):
you remember, Steve's family liked that he married a nurse
because it meant he would be taken care of. But
sometimes we can only do so much. When the police
began to get more information, it seems that Steve had
been sick before his death. According to Lana, he had
come down with vertigo three days before falling down the stairs.
Vertigo is the sensation that you or the environment around
(05:57):
you are moving or spinning. It can be very story
thing and really an awful thing. To deal with. Steve
had also been dealing with severe nausea, which is a
common symptom of vertigo. When the detectives looked around the house,
the primary bedroom, which was located on the second floor,
was a complete mess. The bed was covered in urine
and sweat. It was clear that Steve had been severely bedridden.
(06:18):
Lana told police that she had checked on Steve that
morning and he was sound asleep, so, as usual, she
made sure he had his water and his medications, and
then she went outside to do some yardwork. When she
came back inside from doing a yard work, she found
him at the bottom of the stairs. That's when she
ran outside and fled down the neighbor. As the police
(06:40):
began to piece together what happened, Lana was just beside herself.
She had asked police to pray over Steve's body, and
it seemed like she was blaming herself for his death.
The police ended up ruling Steve's cause of death as
a heart attack, and the whole thing looked like a
tragic accident and there was nothing suspicious about it. A
few days later, Laana held the funeral for Steve in
the homes by yard friends and family gathered to remember
(07:02):
the larger than life man who was gone far too soon.
Steve's family made a public statement that read, the family
is shocked and mortified at the cause of Steven's death.
All of our family and friends know how much he
loved his wife, Laana and how devoted he was to her.
We are all still trying to process this, and while
publicly Steve's family was very supportive about Lana, behind closed doors,
(07:23):
they're definitely were some loving questions. First of all, why
didn't Launa call nine one one herself? There were at
least two phones in the house, and yet she ran
down the street, wasting maybe what could have been very
valuable time. Obviously, this is a tragic situation, so none
of us really know how we would behave in this situation.
(07:44):
But she was also a trained nurse. Another phone related
mystery was Steve's cell phone. No one could find it,
and he was known to always be that kind of
a person who was near their phone, but when police
searched for it, they even couldn't locate it. And remember,
and it was a nurse, so why didn't she perform
CPR and attempt any life saving procedures? One last thing
(08:07):
also that didn't sit well with Steve's family. Days after
his death, when the police asked Lana what her plans
were for his burial, she balked at them and said,
I'm in crisis right now. I can't be asked these
questions and she had no idea. However, when the cops
said that they wanted to test Steve's body back at
the lab, she seemed to suddenly have a really big
(08:30):
plan in her mind and decided right then and there
that she wanted to have her husband's body cremated. That's
a big deal because once cremated, there's really no way
to test for clues. A possible explanation for lana sudden
flip flop was what she told Steve's family. According to her,
Steve had a dark secret. She said that Steve was
(08:50):
a hard drug user and that would explain why she
didn't want an autopsy. His family was shocked, as they
had never known him to use any sort of drug
and were completely so prize that she was bringing it
up now after his death. It also seemed that that
once loving marriage might not have been as happy as
it appeared. According to a friend, two months before he
(09:12):
was found dead at the bottom of the stairs. Steve
had been saying that he and Lana's relationship was kind
of in trouble. He apparently said he wasn't happy with
Lana and everything he thought was true was not. Back
to after Steve's death, as Lana was working with his
nephew Chris to figure out the estate, Chris told Laana
(09:32):
that they needed to go over his will to make
sure it was all being handled properly, and Lana's response
surprised him. She very firmly told Chris that there was
in fact no will, but Chris, the nephew, was adamant
that he had seen the will and that she was wrong,
but at this point, what could he do, and the
family at this point is suspicious. They actually came together
(09:53):
and went behind Lana's back and demanded to have an autopsy.
While usually a coroner would list into the next of kin,
in this case that would be Lana, who actually, as
you know, declined in autopsy, the medical examiner decided to
go ahead and perform one anyway, and it was a
really close call. The cremation was scheduled for the following day,
(10:14):
but they were able to get in just in time.
We're going to take a break. We'll be back in
just a moment. As the officials awaited the toxicology report,
(10:38):
they uncovered an incident from two years prior in that
couldn't be ignored. On this night, while Steve was sleeping,
Lana shot him in the back of the head with
a crossbow. She told detectives she had been trying to
load across bow but was having difficulty with it, so
(10:58):
she went upstairs to find and her husband, Steve, and
the machine quote accidentally went off. Steve backed up her story,
so nothing came out of the incident, but now with
Steve dead, the crossbow incident couldn't be ignored. Meanwhile, the
toxicology report came back. There was no drug use like
Lana had predicted, but there were high levels of tetra
(11:21):
hydrolazine enough to be fatal. But what was the mystery
poison from eye drops? Here's Jeff. Tetra Hydrolazine, also known
as t Z, is the main ingredient advising yes I drops.
In the medical community. Th HD is known as a mickey.
(11:43):
It's colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It can easily be put
in someone's food or drink and cause them to become incapacitative.
Medical experts have said it could be used for robbery
or sexual assault. Using eye drops as poison has been
seen in shows and movies like C s I and
wedding crashers. In Steve's case, he had such a large
amount in his system that it actually killed him, which
is impossible to imagine, and detectives wondered at this point
(12:06):
if Steve maybe killed himself. So they brought in Lana
and they wanted to interview her, hopefully to get some
more insight. The police watched and recorded the meeting that
she had with the coroner. Somebody wants to tell him,
go back room and like two drops in his coffee
and how long have you been doing that for? This
(12:32):
is nuts. Lana told the corner that to have a
proper bowel movement, Steve would put eye drops in his
coffee like it was some sort of laxative. I have
never heard of anyone doing this. It's also hard to
believe that as a nurse she would approve of this behavior.
But that wasn't the strangest part of her interview. The
um there's a drug called tech or hydral thing. It's
(12:58):
surprising that she would immediately know what THHC was. Sure,
she's a nurse, but this is a very obscure chemical,
so obscure that the emmy on the case had to
look it up themselves. How would you have known what
it was so quickly? At this point, the cops came
into the interrogation. Someoney, technically, will kind of share your office?
Overweight on? Yes, ma'am. Now listen, you are by no
(13:22):
means in trouble. You want to ask you something we
have to read on right right? Everybody? Okay? Did you
have to write for myself? Right now? The dead is suspicious?
In man? Everybody keeps asking me you know about the coffee?
And I know they're wanting to know about the vising.
(13:43):
There's only two people in the house. It was you
and him. I know you have always had to mind.
Do you have any that day? I don't know. You're
in the nursing business, though, wouldn't you know the effects
of it? Sure? I didn't think vising was anything that
would be serious to your to your health. It makes
(14:06):
sense that the cops are pressing her about this wild
statement because it really doesn't add up. So what happened next?
Lana then throughout a whole new story. She began saying
that Steve was physically abusive to her, and she accused
him of having some sort of a mood disorder, and
when the cops really pressed her, she immediately stopped the interview.
(14:27):
The detectives ended up following her home and continued to
talk to her back at the Clayton estate. Lana finally
admitted that she had in fact slipped her husband the vising.
The question remained, why would she do that to her husband?
According to Lana, Steve was needy and demanding, constantly bossing
her around. In about of anger, she squeezed an entire
(14:49):
bottle of vizine into Steve's drink. She admitted that while
she wanted him to suffer, she didn't intend to kill
her husband. Through it all, Lana stuck to her battered
wife story. She now said that the crossbowt incident wasn't
in fact an accident at all, that she had shot
Steve in self defense. It should be noted that no
one could substantiate Laana's claims of abuse, and by all accounts,
(15:11):
Steve was a gentle and kind man. We literally have
heard nothing to the contrary. And after this big nighttime confession.
After the nighttime confession, the cops left Lana at home
and they went off to prepare and arrest warrant, and
that night she actually attempted suicide. She tried swallowing pills
and even turned on the gas. The next morning, on August,
(15:36):
she was resuscitated, and once she was alert, she was
charged with murder. The police's official theory was that this
was no crime of passion or accident. They thought that
Lana had been poisoning Steve for weeks. She started by
slowly introducing the vising into his food or drinks, and
then quickly ramped it up. This would explain why Steve
(15:56):
was bedroom and remember, the room was a dirty mess.
Didn't look like Laana had been taking very big care
of him. The day he died, the cops believe that
Steve had gotten some sort of rush of adrenaline and
tried to escape. He made it to the bottom of
the stairs, where he collapsed and tragically died. Think about
the fact that no one ever found his cell phone.
Detectives believe that Lana hit it to prevent him from
calling for help. The details are just hard to hear,
(16:21):
and the motive. Even worse is the one that is
as old as time. Money. Steve had a ton of money, apparently,
And it seemed like this murderous plan started all the
way back in when Lana convinced Steve to move from
his home in North Carolina to South Carolina. And get this,
(16:42):
The reason for that is because in South Carolina, if
someone dies without a will, their estate automatically goes to
the spouse, which in this case, of course, was Laana.
And remember Chris, the nephew. He was really confident and
positive that he had seen Steve's will. And now we're
finding out that a neighbor had also seen Lana having
(17:03):
a bonfire in the backyard the day after Steve died.
It's believed now that she was likely burning his will.
But the story gets even stranger. It seemed like the
story was coming to a close, but three weeks later,
just twelve miles away, a woman was found dead. Like
Steve Clayton, the woman died of THHC poisoning at thirty
(17:27):
two years old. Stacy Hunts Sucker was a bright and
bubbly mother of two. She and her husband were high
school sweethearts, and Stacy worked as a preschool teacher and
her husband was a paramedic and he worked in hospital planes.
When Stacy died, it was initially ruled a heart attack,
but when her husband, Josh collected two hundred fifty dollars
(17:49):
in life insurance just two days after she passed, Stacy's
mom reported insurance rod. The detectives on that case uncovered
that he had started dating a coworker very soon after
Stacy died. Following Stacy's death, Josh and had her cremated
and there was no autopsy performed. Well, all, this didn't
mean he was guilty of murder. It didn't make him
look good. The insurance department called the cops, who then
(18:12):
called the exact same detectives who worked on Steve's case. Obviously,
the first thing they wanted to do was checked the body.
It had also been cremated, so that was impossible. However,
Luckily for investigators, Stacy was an organ downer and they
still had some kind of a vial of her blood
remaining at the medical labs. It was enough to test,
(18:34):
and sure enough, it was the same ingredient THC, the
chemical invisine that was used to kill Steve. In court,
the prosecutor explained details about Stacy's death and Josh's involvement
in September dating in this case is miss Stacy Hunsucker defendant.
Why she suffered some sort of health issue at her
(19:00):
home on that evening. She was taken to a local hospital,
treated and eventually succumbed to that health issue. UM. Not
much happening in the intervening a few weeks or even
months investigation wise, but at some point it was determined
(19:24):
at a a number of vials of blood were being
held by a private company that handles tissue and organ
donation that we're taken from the victim prior to her cremation.
Agent Morgan and the medical examiner were able to get
(19:45):
ahold of that blood have it tested, and it tested
very high levels of tetra hydrozolene, which is one of
the active ingredients in certain hye drop medicine that we
used to clear your eyes. UM that we're told by
our toxicologists and our cardiologists that that medicine has a
(20:09):
dramatic effect on your heart, and we calls hartstoftage or
heart failure in a fairly short amount of time, which
is consistent with what happened here. We have probable calls
that he is the one who poisoned miss Hunsucker with
vizine or a similar product and calls her death and
(20:31):
without saying too much, quite a bit of our information
we got from him during his interview. I don't I
don't know that he would characterize it as a confession,
but it certainly approached that level, your honor. There were
so many similarities between these cases, the medical workers, spouse,
(20:51):
the death ruled, the heart attack, the spouse pushing for
cremation and no autopsy, money being the motive for possible murder.
I wondered, at least who know each other? No, Actually,
cops think that Josh he might have seen this report
about Steve's death and decided to basically copycat that killing,
but we don't know this for sure yet. On December,
(21:14):
Josh Han Sucker was charged with murder. He claims as
innocent and is out on bail and his cases ongoing.
Again innocent until proven guilty. But it's just interesting to
see how some of these cases can cross over, and
what are the odds that the same detectives who worked
Steve's case are now also working this one as well,
(21:37):
let's stop here for another break well stuff. Back to
the original case of Steve and Mona Clayton. The d
(21:57):
A ended up offering her a plea deal, which accepted.
She pleaded guilty to tampering with Steve's food and drugs,
and it ended up being a charge of voluntary manslaughter.
At her sentencing, Lana maintained that she didn't mean to
kill Steve, just hurt him. I did and also put
the visne is Stephen's drink, and I did it with
the intent to make him sick and uncomfortable. I was
(22:20):
upset about the abuse and just wanted him to leave
me alone. I never thought it would kill him. She
actually told the judge that she had been sexually abused
her entire life and that she was dealing with the
trauma of that. All that to be said, no one
could ever back those claims up. In court, Steve's loved
(22:42):
ones spoke about their experiences with Lana and dealing with
the loss of the kind and big hearted man. Impassion.
Please like this from loved ones really can make a
difference to the judge as he decides the sentencing. Please
note that the friend pronounces her name Lanta, but the
correct pronunciation as we heard it, it's Lata. My mother
was correct when she described Steve as the greatest friend
(23:04):
that anyone could ever have. Is Steve loves someone. We
loved them too. When Steve and Landon Mary, we welcomed
her with open arms. Lanta Sue, as Steve lovingly called her,
was a v a nurse from Oklahoma, and the vision
of what Atlanta Sue, v a nurse from Oklahoma looked
(23:27):
like is what we saw, sweet and good. We traveled
together on vacations. We visited Steve and Lanta in the mountains.
We met in the middle to cheer on the seminoles.
We gathered in our hometown any chance we got. In
the four and a half years they were married, I
(23:48):
never saw Aunt Atlanta angry or greedy or unhappy in
any way ever. Ever, she told me she loved her job.
She won it to continue working until she could retire
for bed with benefits. We always look forward to our
times together. Lanta and I were friends again. I never
(24:10):
saw Lanta be angry, greedy, or unhappy. Never I truly
thought that Landa loved Steve and that their marriage was
good and now by her own confession, Lana had stated
that she was a murderer who had planned and succeeded
in taking the life of our dearest friend, our brother, Steve.
(24:31):
Lanna didn't kill Steve in a fit of passion. This
is a deliberate, successfully executed plan on Lanta's part. The
comprehension of Lanta's actions unleashed a flood of new pain.
How long did Steve suffer? Were the abouts of illness
that Steve had been experiencing that year actually from Lanta's poisoning?
(24:52):
Was he trapped in his own house while he suffered
and died? Was he trying to seek help when he
went downstairs? Did you know he was dying? Well, we'll
never know the answers to these questions. My heart and
soul weeps for what this may have been like for Steve. Now,
along with the incredible grief over the loss of our
dearest friend, we are faced with the heinous deceit of
(25:15):
this ENA's evil murderer, who we thought was not only
a good person, but we had also considered to be
our friend. We have been completely fooled by Lanta, and
never have I been so fooled by anyone. Steve didn't
have to die. Lanta Sue Clayton methodically planned and murdered
an exceptional man, Stephen Clayton. Lanna took Steve's life, took
(25:40):
his life. As the judge handed down his sentence, he
admitted that this was the strangest case he had ever
presided over. This will probably take some cave as far
is being bizarre lit a tangle with we We've Clayton,
you you would have. He ultimately sentence Laura to years
(26:04):
in prison, the time that Steve's family feel is not
long enough. Shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love,
leave us a review and listen to season three of
our hit series, The Pikes and Massacre. New episodes there
every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget
(26:26):
to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy
in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves,
and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Ta.
Crazy in Love is a production of I Heart Radio
and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(26:47):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
because the story starts out with once upon a Times
doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
(00:25):
Today's guests are true crime producers Stephanie Leidecker and Jeff
Shane Episode forty seven The Case of the Eye Drops,
the Staircase, and the Copycat Killer. Steve Clayton was always
looking for more. Growing up in Florida. He dealt with
(00:47):
childhood hardships, but was committed to making something of himself.
Steve worked his way through college as a construction laborer.
After graduating, he became a well respected accountant in North Carolina, NA.
But Steve had bigger aspirations for his life. He had
an idea for a business in the nineteen eighties and
ended up quitting his job and creating a highly successful
(01:09):
physical therapy business that targeted sports therapy. Described as a
visionary and a brilliant business strategist who had a passion
for learning and critical thinking, Steve's idea took off, and
he was able to retire in nine at the age
of forty. And yet through all the success, Steve still
wanted more. He vowed to travel the world learning more
(01:32):
about wine, music, and art, three things he was passionate about.
He also avowed to think of new business ideas that
would help better people's lives in Everything changed when he
met a woman named Lana online, a nurse by trade.
Lana was sweet and caring. For once in his life,
Steve didn't want anything else with Lana. He had it all.
(01:56):
Three years after meeting, the couple got married and built
a life together. They moved from North to South Carolina
into a palatial waterfront mansion. It came to be known
as the Clayton Estate. Built on the shore of Lake Wiley,
the home boasted expansive views, a chef's kitchen, and a
grand staircase. The home was modeled after President Washington's famed
(02:19):
Mount Vernon estate, and the Clayton's made good use of
the property. Stephen Laana were known to host lavish parties
with friends and family. The home was described as full,
the kind you were always welcome at and wanted to
be in. Here's Jeff While Steve was independently wealthy and
retired because of his physical therapy business, Laana was a
(02:40):
hard working nurse. She was working at the Department of
Veterans Affairs in Charlotte when she met Steve. After the
couple moved from South to North Carolina, she continued to
work at the Veterans Hospital and commuted about forty minutes
each way. Steve family was actually really excited that she
was a nurse because he was a bit of a
bigger guy and not necessarily in the shape, and so
(03:00):
they felt good that he was with someone who was
a medical professional and should something happen to him or
he was in any sort of medical crisis, Lana would
be able to take really good care of him. And
while Lana had been married once before, her close friends
said that she really didn't seem anything but happy when
they met. We're looking at this photograph. They looked so
warm and comfortable together. He's very tall, wearing a white shirt.
(03:23):
She's leaning in. She's a brunette also with her hair
up and long pretty earrings, and they look very at
ease together. Yestef. We'll actually post this picture on our
Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Stephen was described as magnanimous.
He had a huge personality, and not only did he
have a really close circle of friends, but he also
(03:44):
had a very long relationship history. He had been married
six or seven times, so many times that his family
members say they lost count, but they would say that lovingly.
And despite being a serial groom, it seemed that Steve
just really loved being in love and Launa to him,
was his perfect match at last. She was head over
(04:06):
heels in love with him and it was mutual. She
was known to apparently kiss him on the forehead and
often said she loved him. On July, the couple hosted
an epic Fourth of July bash. At the party, as
their loved ones watched, Stephen Laanna danced in the grass.
The night ended in fireworks, but the real show would
(04:28):
come just a few weeks later. On July, Laana was
seen running out of the house desperately waving for help.
She flagged down a neighbor and in a breathless panic,
managed to tell them her husband had fallen down the stairs.
Laana pleaded for the neighbor to call nine on one.
When first responders arrived, they found sixty four year old
(04:50):
Steve Clayton dead at the bottom of the Holmes Grand staircase.
Over him was Laanna sobbing. The immediate aftermath was caught
on police body amps. Take a listen, God, I have
a guilt not checking any sounds of your following or anything.
(05:14):
Pretty much pretty much there's oh no, not at all.
As you can hear, Lana's neighbor is explaining to the
police that she was feeling immediate guilt about her husband's death.
I mean, she was a nurse and his wife, so
I would imagine she would be feeling pretty badly about
not having taken care of him or allowing him to
somehow get in the state that he was in. As
(05:36):
you remember, Steve's family liked that he married a nurse
because it meant he would be taken care of. But
sometimes we can only do so much. When the police
began to get more information, it seems that Steve had
been sick before his death. According to Lana, he had
come down with vertigo three days before falling down the stairs.
Vertigo is the sensation that you or the environment around
(05:57):
you are moving or spinning. It can be very story
thing and really an awful thing. To deal with. Steve
had also been dealing with severe nausea, which is a
common symptom of vertigo. When the detectives looked around the house,
the primary bedroom, which was located on the second floor,
was a complete mess. The bed was covered in urine
and sweat. It was clear that Steve had been severely bedridden.
(06:18):
Lana told police that she had checked on Steve that
morning and he was sound asleep, so, as usual, she
made sure he had his water and his medications, and
then she went outside to do some yardwork. When she
came back inside from doing a yard work, she found
him at the bottom of the stairs. That's when she
ran outside and fled down the neighbor. As the police
(06:40):
began to piece together what happened, Lana was just beside herself.
She had asked police to pray over Steve's body, and
it seemed like she was blaming herself for his death.
The police ended up ruling Steve's cause of death as
a heart attack, and the whole thing looked like a
tragic accident and there was nothing suspicious about it. A
few days later, Laana held the funeral for Steve in
the homes by yard friends and family gathered to remember
(07:02):
the larger than life man who was gone far too soon.
Steve's family made a public statement that read, the family
is shocked and mortified at the cause of Steven's death.
All of our family and friends know how much he
loved his wife, Laana and how devoted he was to her.
We are all still trying to process this, and while
publicly Steve's family was very supportive about Lana, behind closed doors,
(07:23):
they're definitely were some loving questions. First of all, why
didn't Launa call nine one one herself? There were at
least two phones in the house, and yet she ran
down the street, wasting maybe what could have been very
valuable time. Obviously, this is a tragic situation, so none
of us really know how we would behave in this situation.
(07:44):
But she was also a trained nurse. Another phone related
mystery was Steve's cell phone. No one could find it,
and he was known to always be that kind of
a person who was near their phone, but when police
searched for it, they even couldn't locate it. And remember,
and it was a nurse, so why didn't she perform
CPR and attempt any life saving procedures? One last thing
(08:07):
also that didn't sit well with Steve's family. Days after
his death, when the police asked Lana what her plans
were for his burial, she balked at them and said,
I'm in crisis right now. I can't be asked these
questions and she had no idea. However, when the cops
said that they wanted to test Steve's body back at
the lab, she seemed to suddenly have a really big
(08:30):
plan in her mind and decided right then and there
that she wanted to have her husband's body cremated. That's
a big deal because once cremated, there's really no way
to test for clues. A possible explanation for lana sudden
flip flop was what she told Steve's family. According to her,
Steve had a dark secret. She said that Steve was
(08:50):
a hard drug user and that would explain why she
didn't want an autopsy. His family was shocked, as they
had never known him to use any sort of drug
and were completely so prize that she was bringing it
up now after his death. It also seemed that that
once loving marriage might not have been as happy as
it appeared. According to a friend, two months before he
(09:12):
was found dead at the bottom of the stairs. Steve
had been saying that he and Lana's relationship was kind
of in trouble. He apparently said he wasn't happy with
Lana and everything he thought was true was not. Back
to after Steve's death, as Lana was working with his
nephew Chris to figure out the estate, Chris told Laana
(09:32):
that they needed to go over his will to make
sure it was all being handled properly, and Lana's response
surprised him. She very firmly told Chris that there was
in fact no will, but Chris, the nephew, was adamant
that he had seen the will and that she was wrong,
but at this point, what could he do, and the
family at this point is suspicious. They actually came together
(09:53):
and went behind Lana's back and demanded to have an autopsy.
While usually a coroner would list into the next of kin,
in this case that would be Lana, who actually, as
you know, declined in autopsy, the medical examiner decided to
go ahead and perform one anyway, and it was a
really close call. The cremation was scheduled for the following day,
(10:14):
but they were able to get in just in time.
We're going to take a break. We'll be back in
just a moment. As the officials awaited the toxicology report,
(10:38):
they uncovered an incident from two years prior in that
couldn't be ignored. On this night, while Steve was sleeping,
Lana shot him in the back of the head with
a crossbow. She told detectives she had been trying to
load across bow but was having difficulty with it, so
(10:58):
she went upstairs to find and her husband, Steve, and
the machine quote accidentally went off. Steve backed up her story,
so nothing came out of the incident, but now with
Steve dead, the crossbow incident couldn't be ignored. Meanwhile, the
toxicology report came back. There was no drug use like
Lana had predicted, but there were high levels of tetra
(11:21):
hydrolazine enough to be fatal. But what was the mystery
poison from eye drops? Here's Jeff. Tetra Hydrolazine, also known
as t Z, is the main ingredient advising yes I drops.
In the medical community. Th HD is known as a mickey.
(11:43):
It's colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It can easily be put
in someone's food or drink and cause them to become incapacitative.
Medical experts have said it could be used for robbery
or sexual assault. Using eye drops as poison has been
seen in shows and movies like C s I and
wedding crashers. In Steve's case, he had such a large
amount in his system that it actually killed him, which
is impossible to imagine, and detectives wondered at this point
(12:06):
if Steve maybe killed himself. So they brought in Lana
and they wanted to interview her, hopefully to get some
more insight. The police watched and recorded the meeting that
she had with the coroner. Somebody wants to tell him,
go back room and like two drops in his coffee
and how long have you been doing that for? This
(12:32):
is nuts. Lana told the corner that to have a
proper bowel movement, Steve would put eye drops in his
coffee like it was some sort of laxative. I have
never heard of anyone doing this. It's also hard to
believe that as a nurse she would approve of this behavior.
But that wasn't the strangest part of her interview. The
um there's a drug called tech or hydral thing. It's
(12:58):
surprising that she would immediately know what THHC was. Sure,
she's a nurse, but this is a very obscure chemical,
so obscure that the emmy on the case had to
look it up themselves. How would you have known what
it was so quickly? At this point, the cops came
into the interrogation. Someoney, technically, will kind of share your office?
Overweight on? Yes, ma'am. Now listen, you are by no
(13:22):
means in trouble. You want to ask you something we
have to read on right right? Everybody? Okay? Did you
have to write for myself? Right now? The dead is suspicious?
In man? Everybody keeps asking me you know about the coffee?
And I know they're wanting to know about the vising.
(13:43):
There's only two people in the house. It was you
and him. I know you have always had to mind.
Do you have any that day? I don't know. You're
in the nursing business, though, wouldn't you know the effects
of it? Sure? I didn't think vising was anything that
would be serious to your to your health. It makes
(14:06):
sense that the cops are pressing her about this wild
statement because it really doesn't add up. So what happened next?
Lana then throughout a whole new story. She began saying
that Steve was physically abusive to her, and she accused
him of having some sort of a mood disorder, and
when the cops really pressed her, she immediately stopped the interview.
(14:27):
The detectives ended up following her home and continued to
talk to her back at the Clayton estate. Lana finally
admitted that she had in fact slipped her husband the vising.
The question remained, why would she do that to her husband?
According to Lana, Steve was needy and demanding, constantly bossing
her around. In about of anger, she squeezed an entire
(14:49):
bottle of vizine into Steve's drink. She admitted that while
she wanted him to suffer, she didn't intend to kill
her husband. Through it all, Lana stuck to her battered
wife story. She now said that the crossbowt incident wasn't
in fact an accident at all, that she had shot
Steve in self defense. It should be noted that no
one could substantiate Laana's claims of abuse, and by all accounts,
(15:11):
Steve was a gentle and kind man. We literally have
heard nothing to the contrary. And after this big nighttime confession.
After the nighttime confession, the cops left Lana at home
and they went off to prepare and arrest warrant, and
that night she actually attempted suicide. She tried swallowing pills
and even turned on the gas. The next morning, on August,
(15:36):
she was resuscitated, and once she was alert, she was
charged with murder. The police's official theory was that this
was no crime of passion or accident. They thought that
Lana had been poisoning Steve for weeks. She started by
slowly introducing the vising into his food or drinks, and
then quickly ramped it up. This would explain why Steve
(15:56):
was bedroom and remember, the room was a dirty mess.
Didn't look like Laana had been taking very big care
of him. The day he died, the cops believe that
Steve had gotten some sort of rush of adrenaline and
tried to escape. He made it to the bottom of
the stairs, where he collapsed and tragically died. Think about
the fact that no one ever found his cell phone.
Detectives believe that Lana hit it to prevent him from
calling for help. The details are just hard to hear,
(16:21):
and the motive. Even worse is the one that is
as old as time. Money. Steve had a ton of money, apparently,
And it seemed like this murderous plan started all the
way back in when Lana convinced Steve to move from
his home in North Carolina to South Carolina. And get this,
(16:42):
The reason for that is because in South Carolina, if
someone dies without a will, their estate automatically goes to
the spouse, which in this case, of course, was Laana.
And remember Chris, the nephew. He was really confident and
positive that he had seen Steve's will. And now we're
finding out that a neighbor had also seen Lana having
(17:03):
a bonfire in the backyard the day after Steve died.
It's believed now that she was likely burning his will.
But the story gets even stranger. It seemed like the
story was coming to a close, but three weeks later,
just twelve miles away, a woman was found dead. Like
Steve Clayton, the woman died of THHC poisoning at thirty
(17:27):
two years old. Stacy Hunts Sucker was a bright and
bubbly mother of two. She and her husband were high
school sweethearts, and Stacy worked as a preschool teacher and
her husband was a paramedic and he worked in hospital planes.
When Stacy died, it was initially ruled a heart attack,
but when her husband, Josh collected two hundred fifty dollars
(17:49):
in life insurance just two days after she passed, Stacy's
mom reported insurance rod. The detectives on that case uncovered
that he had started dating a coworker very soon after
Stacy died. Following Stacy's death, Josh and had her cremated
and there was no autopsy performed. Well, all, this didn't
mean he was guilty of murder. It didn't make him
look good. The insurance department called the cops, who then
(18:12):
called the exact same detectives who worked on Steve's case. Obviously,
the first thing they wanted to do was checked the body.
It had also been cremated, so that was impossible. However,
Luckily for investigators, Stacy was an organ downer and they
still had some kind of a vial of her blood
remaining at the medical labs. It was enough to test,
(18:34):
and sure enough, it was the same ingredient THC, the
chemical invisine that was used to kill Steve. In court,
the prosecutor explained details about Stacy's death and Josh's involvement
in September dating in this case is miss Stacy Hunsucker defendant.
Why she suffered some sort of health issue at her
(19:00):
home on that evening. She was taken to a local hospital,
treated and eventually succumbed to that health issue. UM. Not
much happening in the intervening a few weeks or even
months investigation wise, but at some point it was determined
(19:24):
at a a number of vials of blood were being
held by a private company that handles tissue and organ
donation that we're taken from the victim prior to her cremation.
Agent Morgan and the medical examiner were able to get
(19:45):
ahold of that blood have it tested, and it tested
very high levels of tetra hydrozolene, which is one of
the active ingredients in certain hye drop medicine that we
used to clear your eyes. UM that we're told by
our toxicologists and our cardiologists that that medicine has a
(20:09):
dramatic effect on your heart, and we calls hartstoftage or
heart failure in a fairly short amount of time, which
is consistent with what happened here. We have probable calls
that he is the one who poisoned miss Hunsucker with
vizine or a similar product and calls her death and
(20:31):
without saying too much, quite a bit of our information
we got from him during his interview. I don't I
don't know that he would characterize it as a confession,
but it certainly approached that level, your honor. There were
so many similarities between these cases, the medical workers, spouse,
(20:51):
the death ruled, the heart attack, the spouse pushing for
cremation and no autopsy, money being the motive for possible murder.
I wondered, at least who know each other? No, Actually,
cops think that Josh he might have seen this report
about Steve's death and decided to basically copycat that killing,
but we don't know this for sure yet. On December,
(21:14):
Josh Han Sucker was charged with murder. He claims as
innocent and is out on bail and his cases ongoing.
Again innocent until proven guilty. But it's just interesting to
see how some of these cases can cross over, and
what are the odds that the same detectives who worked
Steve's case are now also working this one as well,
(21:37):
let's stop here for another break well stuff. Back to
the original case of Steve and Mona Clayton. The d
(21:57):
A ended up offering her a plea deal, which accepted.
She pleaded guilty to tampering with Steve's food and drugs,
and it ended up being a charge of voluntary manslaughter.
At her sentencing, Lana maintained that she didn't mean to
kill Steve, just hurt him. I did and also put
the visne is Stephen's drink, and I did it with
the intent to make him sick and uncomfortable. I was
(22:20):
upset about the abuse and just wanted him to leave
me alone. I never thought it would kill him. She
actually told the judge that she had been sexually abused
her entire life and that she was dealing with the
trauma of that. All that to be said, no one
could ever back those claims up. In court, Steve's loved
(22:42):
ones spoke about their experiences with Lana and dealing with
the loss of the kind and big hearted man. Impassion.
Please like this from loved ones really can make a
difference to the judge as he decides the sentencing. Please
note that the friend pronounces her name Lanta, but the
correct pronunciation as we heard it, it's Lata. My mother
was correct when she described Steve as the greatest friend
(23:04):
that anyone could ever have. Is Steve loves someone. We
loved them too. When Steve and Landon Mary, we welcomed
her with open arms. Lanta Sue, as Steve lovingly called her,
was a v a nurse from Oklahoma, and the vision
of what Atlanta Sue, v a nurse from Oklahoma looked
(23:27):
like is what we saw, sweet and good. We traveled
together on vacations. We visited Steve and Lanta in the mountains.
We met in the middle to cheer on the seminoles.
We gathered in our hometown any chance we got. In
the four and a half years they were married, I
(23:48):
never saw Aunt Atlanta angry or greedy or unhappy in
any way ever. Ever, she told me she loved her job.
She won it to continue working until she could retire
for bed with benefits. We always look forward to our
times together. Lanta and I were friends again. I never
(24:10):
saw Lanta be angry, greedy, or unhappy. Never I truly
thought that Landa loved Steve and that their marriage was
good and now by her own confession, Lana had stated
that she was a murderer who had planned and succeeded
in taking the life of our dearest friend, our brother, Steve.
(24:31):
Lanna didn't kill Steve in a fit of passion. This
is a deliberate, successfully executed plan on Lanta's part. The
comprehension of Lanta's actions unleashed a flood of new pain.
How long did Steve suffer? Were the abouts of illness
that Steve had been experiencing that year actually from Lanta's poisoning?
(24:52):
Was he trapped in his own house while he suffered
and died? Was he trying to seek help when he
went downstairs? Did you know he was dying? Well, we'll
never know the answers to these questions. My heart and
soul weeps for what this may have been like for Steve. Now,
along with the incredible grief over the loss of our
dearest friend, we are faced with the heinous deceit of
(25:15):
this ENA's evil murderer, who we thought was not only
a good person, but we had also considered to be
our friend. We have been completely fooled by Lanta, and
never have I been so fooled by anyone. Steve didn't
have to die. Lanta Sue Clayton methodically planned and murdered
an exceptional man, Stephen Clayton. Lanna took Steve's life, took
(25:40):
his life. As the judge handed down his sentence, he
admitted that this was the strangest case he had ever
presided over. This will probably take some cave as far
is being bizarre lit a tangle with we We've Clayton,
you you would have. He ultimately sentence Laura to years
(26:04):
in prison, the time that Steve's family feel is not
long enough. Shameless plug. If you're enjoying Crazy and Love,
leave us a review and listen to season three of
our hit series, The Pikes and Massacre. New episodes there
every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget
(26:26):
to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios. Crazy
in Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane, Chris Graves,
and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design by Jeff Ta.
Crazy in Love is a production of I Heart Radio
and Katie Studios. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
(26:47):
visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,
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