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South Carolina woman gets 25 years fatally poisoning husband to death w/ eyedrops

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lana clayton clover sc
Pictured, Lana Clayton Clover South Carolina woman and husband.
lana clayton clover sc
Pictured, Lana Clayton Clover South Carolina woman and husband.

Lana Clayton Clover, South Carolina woman sentenced 25 years jail for fatally poisoning husband w/ eye drops. A marriage punctuated w/ ongoing discord. 

A South Carolina woman has been sentenced to 25 years jail for fatally poisoning her husband with eye drops.

Lana Sue Clayton, 53, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and tampering with food on Thursday in connection with the July 2018 death of Steven Delvalle Clayton, WCNC reported.

Lana had initially told deputies that her spouse suffered from vertigo and tumbled down the stairs, where she found him face-down on July 21 in their $800,000 home in Clover, South Carolina.

Deputies said Clayton eventually admitted to spiking her 64-year-old husband’s water with eye drops over a three day span, between July 19 and 21.

An autopsy found a high dose of tetrahydrozoline in his body. The chemical, found in over-the-counter drops, such as Visine, acts as a neurotoxin and attacks the nervous system when swallowed.

Lana Clayton sentenced
Lana Clayton sentenced. Pictured with husband, Steven Clayton

‘I allowed these emotions to make me do something in a matter of seconds that I will forever regret,’

Prosecutors said Clayton was upset with her allegedly abusive husband and wanted him to suffer, WSOC-TV reported.

They also claim that Clayton killed Steven — an accountant and founder of national company Physical Therapy Resources — for his money and burned his will after his death.

Her defense lawyer, Harry Dest, said she suffered post traumatic stress disorder from being sexually abused before her marriage.

The lawyer also said Steven ‘hit her, kicked her and choked her’ throughout their five-year marriage.

‘I allowed these emotions to make me do something in a matter of seconds that I will forever regret,’ Clayton said in court at her sentencing.

Lana, who was Steven’s seventh wife, tried to kill herself before her arrest by taking pills and turning on the gas in the stove. She left a suicide note.

But there’s more.

Prior attempt at her husband’s life?

Two years prior to the poisoning, in May 2016, Clayton had shot her husband in the back of the head with the crossbow, telling cops at the time that it was an accident.

Years later, she changed her story, claiming the couple got into an argument and that Stephen threw something at her, so she shot the crossbow as she ran away.

In 2010, she’d written in a Facebook post that Steven had been unfaithful.

‘My husband is not a drunk he had an affair,‘ she posted. ‘However, he is the father of my children and my kids look at my Facebook. Soooo. I do appreciate the support though.’

Neighbors said she was part of a local Bible Study group. Lana Clayton had worked as a nurse for the VA hospital in Charlotte until her arrest.

She had originally faced the death penalty or life in prison on a murder charge, before pleading to the lesser charge of manslaughter.

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