First off, I am not trying to make light of a homicide. A man lost his life. But it is hard to deny that this story contains more than its share of absurdity.
On the night of May 30, 2016, Lana Clayton went to the York County, South Carolina Sheriff’s Department to inform deputies that she’d accidentally shot her sleeping husband. In the head. With a crossbow.
Either due to a soft pull or a hard head, the bolt did not kill her husband, Steven Clayton.
Mrs. Clayton explained that she was downstairs “trying to load a crossbow” but was having trouble pulling it back. (must have been the hard head then) So, she went upstairs where her husband was sleeping. She decided not to wake him by asking for his help(damned thoughtful, I think), so she was about to go to another bedroom (I often wander through my house at night with a half-cocked crossbow), when the weapon “accidentally” discharged.
The bolt struck Steven Clayton in the back of the head. His wife stated that “he woke up yelling and bleeding from the wound.”
Ya think?
After her visit to the sheriff’s office, Mrs. Clayton and the deputies went to the couple’s home. Mr. Clayton assure them that that he was fine, and the shooting was accidental. He explained that she “had been suffering from vertigo for several days.” (Wasn’t that a Hitchcock movie?”)
Meanwhile she told the police that her husband was mentally abusive, had “mood swings,” and changed in a moment from nice to cruel. But he never hit her. (Maybe she meant he had missed her with his crossbow)
It gets better. Or actually, worse.
Last year, the shooting was ruled accidental and it was determined there was no intent to commit a crime. ( Duhhhhhh. Whaaattttt??? I want that lawyer!!!!!!!)
So, what do you do when your crossbow doesn’t get the job done? You use tetrahydrozoline, commonly found in eyedrops, to poison the poor son-of-a-gun. On July 21, 2018, Steven Clayton was found dead at the foot of the stairs in their $800K home. (and you thought this was just another night at the trailer park!)
Lana Clayton later told deputies she’d gone out to mow the lawn and came in to find her husband, who’d been feeling a bit puny lately, on the floor unresponsive.
But, she later confessed, which caught me by surprise. I mean, after the no-call crossbow thing, I’d have kept riding that lucky pony!
If James Patterson had written that story as a fiction, we’d call it “a bit far-fetched.”
You can follow the story at Heraldonline.com.