Steven Clayton | Pushed to Death | FilmRise True Crime | Forensic Files

[theme music] NARRATOR: A fatal fall in a South Carolina mansion. A life taken in a heartbeat.
- I couldn't speak. I had to hand the phone to my husband because I couldn't speak.
It was not news that I was prepared to hear. NARRATOR: Was it simply down to natural causes?
- She had said that he'd had a heart attack and collapsed and died at the bottom of the stairs.
NARRATOR: Or murdered? [theme music] ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: My brother, Steven Del Valle Clayton, was born on May 1st, 1954.
Steven was always the biggest personality in the room. He was just full of joy. And Steven was just extremely gregarious.
And he was the type of person that when you meet him, you automatically knew that you were friends with him.
He was an accounting major at Florida State University, and from there, it became an interesting avenue for him
to open physical therapy centers inside of hospitals and have them separately run.
And so he began to do this with hospitals all around the country. My brother had great success business wise.
His dream was to retire at 40, but he was able to retire at 41 and start traveling and doing all the things
that he wanted to do. NARRATOR: And what Steve and Clayton wanted to do was inspire others to success.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: After Steven retired, Steven was a mentor to many young people
and started out in college mentoring younger college grads. And from there, the mentorship relationship
grew through college and then into business, and Steve was with them all the way into their success.
NARRATOR: Steven also liked to throw a party. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: Steven loved to entertain people,
and one of the days that was very special for him was the 4th of July and he always had
something very special planned, live music at his house, fireworks. He loved to entertain and he loved to have fun with people.
And he's the kind of man that was always there for his friends. NARRATOR: Steven also cared deeply for his family.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: My dad passed away 11 months before William and I got married,
and Steve not only walked me down the aisle, but he also served as my husband's best man.
- My dad told me before he passed to take care of my sister. To honor you, and he loved you very much.
NARRATOR: Despite Steven's love for his family and friends, his own romantic life was far from perfect.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: He was married six times, and a lot of that was because there was just
no Steven around to really keep the relationships together, because he was traveling at least three weeks out
of every month, so it put a little bit of a dent in some of his personal relationships,
his marriages, et cetera. NARRATOR: But in 2010, Steven Clayton, now living in North Carolina, announced that he
had met someone special. AMBER HAQUE: Steve said that he had met someone called Lana
online through a dating app. Lana worked as a nurse and was originally from Oklahoma.
She had kids from a previous relationship, and she told Steve that she'd been an Air Force veteran
and that she loved the outdoors. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: He loved her so much, he called her his Lana Sue from Oklahoma,
and I think he wanted to make this the rest of his life. They were married in November of 2013.
The wedding took place at their house in North Carolina. It was a beautiful ceremony outdoors, surrounded
by Steve's beautiful gardens. Steven was so excited to be marrying Lana. He felt that he had found somebody, a small town
girl that he was going to finally be able to settle in with for the rest of his life.
NARRATOR: Soon after, the couple moved to the banks of Lake Wylie in York County, South Carolina.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: It's a beautiful piece of property, and it was right on the lake, and the home itself was just--
it was very lovely, very colonial style, in the style of Mount Vernon. NARRATOR: It was the perfect property for Steven to hold
his legendary July 4th party. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: Every time 4th of July came around,
Steven was just in his element, and it was just going to be as grand an event as he always had every
time he got people together. [theme music] NARRATOR: But after one event in 2018,
Steven wasn't his usual sprightly self. AMBER HAQUE: Steve starts to feel a little bit
under the weather. He's just hosted all of these big July 4th parties. He's known for throwing these really epic bashes for it,
but he's all of a sudden bedbound, feeling really dizzy, sick, really, really unwell.
NARRATOR: As he fell ill, he even stopped communicating with his beloved sister.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: The last time that Steven actually replied to a message was on the 16th of July.
And on the 17th of July, I texted him and he didn't get right back to me, which was very odd.
And then I started calling and there was no answer. It was going straight to voicemail.
NARRATOR: Despite not hearing from Steven, Rosie felt reassured that Lana was by his side.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: Lana was a nurse, and that was the thing that made me feel the most confident
about them being together. He had someone by his side, who was trained to help in any sort of emergency situation.
So to me, not hearing from him for a couple of days wasn't something that I was going to be concerned about.
[suspenseful music] NARRATOR: On July 21, five days since Rosie had last heard from her brother,
a motorcyclist was passing by the Clayton's mansion when all hell broke loose. [suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: Within minutes, emergency services arrived on the scene with body cams,
capturing shocking footage that would eventually be seen by South Carolina's Chief Prosecutor for York
and Union County, Solicitor Kevin Brackett. - At the bottom of the main flight of stairs leading
from the second floor down to the first, they found the body of Steven Clayton. Given the position they found him
in at the bottom of the stairs, it's quite possible that he fell some distance down the stairs
and ended up at the foot of the stairs. In a situation like this, the emergency responders
realized that heroic measures to try to restore life to Mr. Clayton would be futile that he
had been deceased for some time, and there was no bringing him back. [tense music]
NARRATOR: As her husband's body lay in the Hall, an officer tried to calm a hysterical Lana.
- When they asked her about him, she told them that he had been sick for the last several days,
that he suffered from bouts of vertigo, and that-- that he had been bedridden, essentially, and
that at about 11 o'clock that morning, she had left the house to go outside to do some yard work.
And when she came back an hour and a half, an hour and 45 minutes later, she found her husband
at the bottom of the stairs. NARRATOR: As officers listened to Lana Clayton. Stevens, police officer, nephew Nick arrived at the house
after hearing of his uncle's passing. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: He heard the address come over the radio
and immediately recognized it. And so when he arrived there, my brother had passed away.
He was dead on the floor in front of the stairs. [somber music] NARRATOR: The scene pointed to a tragic accident.
The deputy coroner arrived to figure out exactly how Steven had died. NARRATOR: Initial signs suggested
a fatal fall down the stairs. But the deputy coroner also noticed that Steven's face had a grayish pallor
and concluded his probable cause of death. - Apparently, the coroner had seen a discoloration
of his skin and immediately thought that it was a heart attack. A simple matter of him having a heart attack
and falling down the stairs. NARRATOR: When the deputy coroner offered to take Steven Clayton's body
to the morgue to run some tests, Lana made a snap decision. KEVIN BRACKETT: She indicated that she did
not want an autopsy performed. She wanted to have him cremated, so she asked that he be taken to a local funeral home.
She gave them the name of the funeral home and the body was removed at that point.
NARRATOR: Although Steven's body was already on its way to the funeral home, there was still
one close family member who had not even been informed of his death. KEVIN BRACKETT: Nick suggested and said,
why hasn't Chris got here yet? And he came to learn, Chris, who was the nephew of Steven and very, very close,
like a son to Steven, had not even been called. So he told Lana, we need to call Chris.
He needs to know. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: And when he said that to Lana, she went berserk.
She did not want Christopher to be there. She did not want to notify Christopher.
That was an outrage to Nick because he knew of their closeness. Even though Lena was very insistent
that Christopher not be called. Nick did the right thing, and he called Christopher immediately.
NARRATOR: When Christopher learned of Steven's death. He relayed the sad news to Rosie.
- The first thing I heard my nephew crying like a baby, saying, Uncle Steve is gone, Uncle Steve is gone.
And I couldn't speak. I had to hand the phone to my husband because I couldn't speak.
It was not news that I was prepared to hear. He was a very good person, and he was my best friend.
And every single day I miss him. [somber music] NARRATOR: After informing Rosie and
the rest of Steven Clayton's extended family in Florida about his sudden death from a heart attack, which
may have led to a fatal fall down the stairs, Steven's nephew Chris went to the family's
South Carolina home to be with his grieving family. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: Christopher
arrived at the house, his wife met him there, and so he was coming to comfort Lana.
And Chris continued to try to reassure her by saying, you don't have to worry about anything, Lana.
Uncle Steve has everything written down in his will. And she immediately told him there is no will.
[tense music] And this could not have been further from the truth. Not only did Christopher know about the will,
Christopher had seen the will. It was so large, it was practically the size of a ream of paper.
Lana continued to insist that there was no will, to the point that she became infuriated with Christopher.
KEVIN BRACKETT: It was clear to them at that point something was off. This wasn't right, and this needed to be looked at further.
- You would imagine that having been married for five years, that Lana would be aware of the existence
of a will, especially when a husband is financially very successful. It does suggest a real disconnect between the family
unit and Lana. And that kind of suggests either that they're both receiving different information,
or that there's something else going on there that's kind of hidden beneath the surface.
NARRATOR: Thrown by Lana Clayton's denial of the existence of a will. Steven's nephews went upstairs to check out his bedroom,
where they found a shocking scene. KEVIN BRACKETT: In the bedroom, they see the bed is in disarray.
The bed is filthy. There's vomit on the bed. The mattress is soaked with urine, so soaked
that the urine has actually started to puddle beneath the mattress, underneath the bed.
The thing you have to know about Steven is that he was an extremely fastidious individual.
He was very clean. He would sometimes shower twice a day. - To be lying in a pool of his own bodily fluids
is not only an undignified situation for any human being, but it is absolutely not one that my brother
would find himself in. KEVIN BRACKETT: The second thing was they couldn't find his phone anywhere.
It wasn't in the bedroom, which also struck them as odd because he was glued to his phone,
and if he was bedridden for several days, his phone should have been right there next to him,
but it wasn't. AMBER HAQUE: So things were really jumping out to Nick at this point.
Why hadn't Lana called 911 herself? There were two phones in the house at the time.
Why she had to run out onto the street asking someone else to call 911. It was also really strange that Lana
didn't give Steve CPR herself. She was a nurse. She was medically trained to know how to do that.
This was really unusual. NARRATOR: Despite Nick's misgivings, the official verdict was that Steven's fatal fall
was caused by a heart attack and no foul play was involved. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: This was not
a suspicious enough situation. They felt that they could rely upon the coroner, and
the coroner's perspective that because of his discoloration in his face, that this was clearly a heart attack
and that he had fallen down the stairs. So they had no reason to look further into it.
[reflective music] NARRATOR: Later that evening, Steven's sister Rosie called Lana to ask how Steven had gotten so ill
and why she hadn't heard from him in the days leading up to his death. - I finally got a return call from Lana
after having called her numerous times, and it was approximately 3 o'clock in the morning.
And she was inebriated. She was angry, and she had no empathy for the fact that I had just lost my brother.
She was livid that Steve's family members were letting her know that there was a will.
When she claimed that she knew for a fact that there wasn't. [tense music] I asked her what was going on prior to this,
and she told me that he had been feeling ill, and I asked her, where were you? And she said, I was out mowing the lawn.
And I said, but aren't you telling me that he was violently ill. If he was violently ill, why were
you outside mowing the lawn? And just as a knee jerk reaction, she said, because he was being so needy.
[tense music] When I asked her why it was that I wasn't able to hear from him when I texted him or called him,
she said somewhat nonchalantly, I'm not sure, maybe it's at the bottom of the lake.
That almost made my heart stop because I knew that my brother wouldn't be without a phone.
That was the moment when I felt something was terribly wrong. [suspenseful music]
NARRATOR: As the call progressed, Rosie became even more shocked by what Lana Clayton was saying.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: Lana tried to tell me that Steve was a hardcore drug user.
I know my brother and he was not a hardcore drug user. The reason why she started to say
what she said about the drug use is as an excuse to have him cremated right away, so it
wouldn't be embarrassing to his family that they would find hardcore drugs in his system.
- There's now this accumulation of unusual behaviors coming from Lana around the circumstances of this death,
and it is driving this kind of wedge between her and the family. NARRATOR: Later that day after Rosie's early hours phone call,
Lana also spoke to Steven's nephew, Chris, banning him and others from coming to the family house.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: She said only her children were allowed in the house. She didn't want family members there,
and she said that there was going to be a memorial service at some point, and that's when I could come.
Aside from keeping everybody in the family away, she immediately gave away all of his clothes.
My brother had a really lovely collection of watches. None of that was found. My brother was a collector of art and sculpture.
These things were also missing. Imagine, my brother hadn't even been dead for 24 hours,
and she's already getting rid of all the clothes? This doesn't make sense to me.
This doesn't make any sense at all. - Steve's sister Rosie was well within her right
to be upset and confused by Lana selling off all of his property so fast. It is very unusual.
It's very fast, and especially when he has other family members who might want to be
involved in that process. On the other hand, you could say that actually this behavior
is that of a traumatized woman trying to rid herself of the reminders of her husband
that are surrounding her. So there are explanations, but it is still unusual behavior.
NARRATOR: Suspicious of Lana's behavior and the state of Steven Clayton's bedroom, his nephews
Nick and Chris decided to take action to find out if it was just a tragic accident
or something more sinister. Could he even have been pushed? They wanted to get to the truth.
- They did not believe that Steve had died of natural causes, and they wanted to get a secret autopsy done before Lana
got Steve cremated. - Nick, of his own volition, went to the York County Sheriff's Office
and laid out his concerns, told them why he felt something was wrong and asked for their assistance
in getting an autopsy. The coroner listened to their concerns and agreed that this was a case that merited further inquiry.
So she directed that the body be retrieved from the funeral home, taken to the morgue,
and ordered an autopsy to be performed on it. - But Nick had one more request, and that was to run toxicology tests on Steve's blood.
KEVIN BRACKETT: A toxicologist is a specific type of scientist who examines bodily fluids to determine
the presence of foreign chemicals or foreign agents that may have also impacted or caused brought
about the death of someone. So a toxicology was ordered in this case, and blood was sent off to a toxicologist.
[tense music] NARRATOR: While they waited for Steven's body to be collected from the funeral home for the autopsy,
his police officer nephew Nick decided to dig deeper into the circumstances surrounding his uncle's death.
- My nephew felt that it was imperative that we have as much information as possible and
as quickly as possible. AMBER HAQUE: Nick called some contacts in the police department to try and get them to investigate
what had happened, but he hit a brick wall. He then decided to hire a private investigator
to look around into some of the circumstances surrounding Steve's death. The investigator found that Lana was trying
to liquidate Steve's assets. They also found that she had a fire pit in her garden,
and she had been burning various documents that belonged to Steve. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: Everything
that was in my brother's filing cabinets and there were two large filing cabinets,
was all dumped into the fire pit. NARRATOR: As the investigation continued, Steven Clayton's autopsy results
were released to police, including his nephew Nick. - Steve's autopsy results came back and
showed that he had had heart disease, which supported the initial theory that he
had died of natural causes. But Steve's family would have to wait a lot longer for the toxicology report, which takes
a lot longer to come back. NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Steven's body was returned to the funeral home for cremation, and on August 4th,
two weeks after Steven died, Lana held a private memorial service at the family home.
- There were a lot of Steve's mentees there, and Steve's closest friends were there,
but there was just an air of something bizarre. Lana's behavior at the memorial was very out of the ordinary.
She wore a red and white dress, sundress. She didn't act like a person who had just lost somebody
that was dear to them. She didn't interact much with many of the guests. She only interacted with the neighbors.
There were many of us that had a tremendous amount of suspicion, but there was absolutely
nothing that we could do until the toxicology reports came back. NARRATOR: About two weeks after Stevens memorial,
the report was finally released to Stevens nephews, Nick and Chris. - It revealed that he had the presence of a large amount
of tetrahydrozoline, which is the active ingredient in Visine in his system 68 nanograms per milliliter,
which was a lethal load of tetrahydrozoline. Visine is an eye drop, but there are many different products that serve this purpose that
have tetrahydrozoline in them. When you use eye drops to get the red out of your eyes,
that's the thing in that eye drop actually does the job. It's a vasoconstrictor.
It takes blood vessels that are expanded and narrows them down. It does the same thing when you ingest it
and your blood vessels will constrict. It can make you sick by nauseating you. It can make you dizzy.
It can make you pass out. And ultimately, it can kill you, because your blood vessels are too narrow
and your heart is working too hard to try to pump blood through tubes that have been narrowed by this drug.
Using eye drops appropriately, you would expect to find 0.38 nanograms per milliliter
in the body. Steven had 68 nanograms per milliliter, which is 1,000 times more than what you would normally find.
Now, the question arises, how did that tetrahydrozoline get into Mr. Clayton's body?
And that is not something that would naturally occur. So somebody must have put it into him.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: The morning that the toxicology report became available, the phone rang, and it was my nephew Christopher,
and through fighting back tears and anger, he screamed. She did it. She killed him. She did it.
She killed him. The report really said that my brother had been murdered. That he had been intentionally poisoned.
I could barely speak with anyone because there was no way that anyone would want
to cause that kind of harm to someone as kind and generous and loving as Steven.
[somber music] NARRATOR: It was initially believed that Steven Clayton had a heart attack
and potentially fell to his death at his South Carolina home. But a toxicology test on his blood
shockingly revealed that he was actually killed by a lethal overdose of a chemical called
tetrahydrozoline, also known as THZ commonly found in eye drops. THZ constricts blood vessels, causing severe nausea.
Extremely low blood pressure, and in Steven's case, death. AMBER HAQUE: When that toxicology report came back,
the police had something definitive. Up until that point, they didn't have much.
But this report now showed that Steve had been poisoned. [suspenseful music] NARRATOR: Police were now dealing
with a potential murder. But did the poison alone kill Steven? Or was he poisoned and then pushed to his death?
Investigators were determined to find out. [suspenseful music] - On August 17th, 2018, the York County
Sheriff's Office launched an investigation into Steve's death. NARRATOR: 12 days later, on August 29th, 2018,
just over one month after Steven died, his wife Lana Clayton was called to the York
County Coroner's office. - The Coroner and the Sheriff's office agreed that the best way to conduct the interview would
be just to bring her in for the purpose of discussing with the Coroner the results of the autopsy and toxicology.
- The Coroner and the Sheriff's Office did not want her to know that the Sheriff's office
was involved at that point. They didn't want to arouse her suspicions. So the police would not be in the room
where the initial interview was conducted. They would be in an adjacent room, monitoring, and listening to what was going on.
One of the most interesting features of the interview with the Coroner was the fact that completely unsolicited,
Lana volunteered that her husband used to put a couple of drops of Visine in his morning coffee
to help keep regular, that he used that to help him move his bowels each morning.
- This was not responsive to anything in particular. At this point in time, she didn't
even know that the toxicology report revealed what it did. - In terms of human behavior, if you're
volunteering information before being asked about it, it's often because you're implying your innocence,
because you don't believe this is information that can implicate you. So in this case where Lana is volunteering information
about the eye drops, that implies that she's trying to reassert her innocence and
the innocence of this chemical being in Steve's system. NARRATOR: Not long after Lana's admission,
detectives entered the room. AMBER HAQUE: When the investigators entered the room,
Lana barely flinched. It was as though she had been expecting them to come. - Detectives began to pick holes in Lana's story.
How could Steve have been putting these drops of Visine into his coffee when she alleged that he
was so sick and bedridden. It was at this point that Lana's tact totally changed.
She then started to blame Steve and to attack his character. [tense music] - In criminology, there's a theory
called ideal victim theory that basically says that the more tarnished someone's character is,
the less readily they're given status as a legitimate victim, basically meaning that if someone has performed
negative X, the general population have less sympathy for them as a victim. And so I think this is Lana's attempt to basically reduce
public sympathy for Steve. So people stop looking into it so much and stop asking as many questions.
- The information she's providing about his character doesn't really move the needle on whether or not he was murdered
or how he was murdered. All of that is irrelevant to the central question of how did that Visine, how did that get into his system.
- As the interview progressed, Lana became more and more aware that she was the focus of the interview
and she was an object of suspicion. And the interview there at the Coroner's office
terminated when she invoked her right to counsel and said she did not wish to answer any further questions
without an attorney present. [somber music] NARRATOR: Later that day, investigators
searched the Claytons home looking for eye drops containing THZ. KEVIN BRACKETT: They would be looking for anything that
had any Visine residue in it. Glasses, cups, anything like that, that would help inform the investigation
on the circumstances of this man's death. The police were able to find some Visine in the house.
Not unusual amounts but the bulk of the items seized revolved around digital evidence that would help
have a better understanding of what had taken place. [tense music] At about 6:15.
Detective Moats, who had been at the Coroner's office, arrived at the house, and the search was
concluding at about that time. Shortly thereafter, while he was at the house, he was approached by Lana, who asked
him if she could speak to him. He started a recorder and recorded the conversation
that took place. [tense music] - Lana admitted that she had, in fact, administered
the Visine to her husband, Steven, that she had been the one who gave it to him.
[tense music] It was very helpful that she admitted this first, because it resolved the issue of who gave him the THZ,
but secondly, because it did so in a recorded fashion that would be incontrovertible in court.
At that point, we had enough information and evidence to file murder charges against her.
- The police were set to arrest Lana for Steve's murder, but then they receive a call from one of her neighbors
saying that Lana had been found unconscious. When the police go there, the gas has been left on
and Lana is surrounded by sleeping tablets. [soft tension music] NARRATOR: After going to Lana Clayton's home
to arrest her for the murder of her husband Steven, and finding her unconscious after an apparent suicide
attempt, police rushed to save her. - When they arrived at the house, they found her upstairs in the bed, unresponsive.
They found suicide notes apologizing for her behavior. They were able to get her to the hospital.
She was treated there. She was not in serious condition. After a few hours, they were able to take her to the jail
and book her in. Dr. HONOR DORO TOWNSHEND: Lana's attempt at taking her own life really implies
different things based on whether she's guilty or not. If she's innocent, then this is a woman
who has experienced significant trauma, but if she's guilty, then this is someone perhaps trying to escape from the mess
that they've created and don't seem that they can get out of. AMBER HAQUE: On August 31st, Lana was taken to York County
Detention Center, where she was then charged with murder and tampering with a food or drug.
NARRATOR: News of Lana's arrest spread to Steven Clayton's family and friends. ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: If you ask me
how I felt at that moment, for me, all the questions just kept getting bigger and bigger.
Because at that moment she became a real live monster, a monster capable of taking away
a person who had represented so much good in my life and so much good in the lives of so many people.
[soft tension music] - After her arrest, Lana continued to disparage Steven. She continued to paint a picture of an abusive person
and make herself out to be the victim of his abuse. - She claimed that Steve had been
emotionally and physically abusive to her, that he was a heavy drug user. And that he had viewed child abuse images.
But the toxicology report only showed that he had a small amount of marijuana and prescription
temazepam in his system. And when investigators checked his computer, there was no evidence to support
Lana's allegations that he had child abuse images. KEVIN BRACKETT: She started accusing him
of being an abusive husband. So one of the things we wanted to find out was what the other women he had been married to
had experienced. None of the wives that he had previously been married to ever indicated that he was abusive.
They characterized him as a loving, caring husband, and they said their time with him was some
of the best in their lives. - She said that he was abusive, but at the same time
she would send me text messages saying how very much in love they were. So I think she was grasping at any sympathy
that she could get from any person, and none of it made sense. [dramatic music] NARRATOR: With Lana in custody awaiting trial.
Police check through their records for any previously reported incidents at the Clayton home.
- There was only one when we did that. One incident that the police had been called out
to the Clayton household, and when we researched that incident report and read through it, the already bizarre case became even more unusual.
What we came to learn after reading this incident report was that Lana shot Steven in the back
of the head with a crossbow in 2016 at about 3 o'clock in the morning while he lay in bed asleep.
[subtle dramatic music] AMBER HAQUE: Luckily, it only grazed him when she was probed about this.
Officer said, had you had an argument? She said no, everything was fine. Steve was just asleep.
He corroborated that, said it was just an accident, so the case was closed. - Steve's reaction to the crossbow incident
throws into question Lana's account of him being violent towards her, the fact that he was so readily happy to let that slide.
A really serious and significant incident. But then, on the other hand, you do have to wonder if it was kind of representative
of an extreme level of violence that was becoming quite normalized in their relationship.
- We were very shocked to find out that this had occurred a couple of years prior.
The fact that we now knew that she had been doing this well prior to what she did to take his life
was just another reason to feel sick in the middle of our gut, because there were just too many situations where
I would get a phone call from my brother after having tried to reach him for a day or two,
and he'd call me and say, you're not going to believe this. I was asleep for two days.
I had the worst sunstroke. But now looking back, she was checking to see what was the dose that was going to take his life.
AMBER HAQUE: The prosecution now had a very strong case against Lana Clayton. They had the toxicology report that
showed those fatal amounts of Visine in Steve's bloodstream. They had been administered to him against his will.
They then also had the fact that Steve had been bedridden for so long, and his mobile phone
had just gone missing. - So the question becomes, why did she do this? Well, every woman that he'd ever been married to he
had a prenuptial agreement with. He was a very wealthy man. So we believe one existed with Lana as well,
but that it was destroyed by Lana after he died along with the will. If there's no will in South Carolina
and you die without a will, everything you have goes to your spouse. [tense music]
She's the one who stood to benefit because she was going to be the sole beneficiary of his estate,
and that's why she did what she did. Our options at this point was proceed on a murder charge, which, if that was going to happen,
she would go to trial. And then the only other option was try to come to some sort of agreement
with the defense that would expose her to what was the equivalent of life without having to go to trial.
And we would spare the victim's family, the rigors of trial, the trauma of going through this detailed description
of what their loved one went through. - We were not going to let this monster go free.
And there was a great chance that she could have. We took the wise counsel of the people in the solicitor's
office and decided that we would go ahead and accept a plea for voluntary manslaughter.
- By accepting a guilty plea, even of a lower level offense. That means the family have secured that there
will be some form of justice. Whereas, going to trial on a no guilty plea on a circumstantial evidence case
means that they'd run the risk of there not being any justice served. [tense music]
NARRATOR: On January 16th, 2020, Lana Clayton pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and
tampering with a food or drug. KEVIN BRACKETT: Our objective was to secure a sentence that was tantamount to life,
and ultimately, the judge concluded that a 25 year no parole sentence was appropriate,
so she will remain in jail until she's 73 years old. We'll never know for sure what took place in that house,
but I believe that Steven Clayton was poisoned over several days. It was clear that she had basically
held him hostage, captive, using this chemical, before he finally succumbed to the poison that was in his system
and collapsed, perhaps falling down the last few stairs, landing at the foot of the stairs where he was found.
This was a prolonged, torturous experience for Steven Clayton, and a horrible one that--
that she was the mastermind and architect for and wholly responsible. [subtle dramatic music]
NARRATOR: At court, Rosie and other members of Steven's family were given the chance
to read out their victim impact statements in front of the now convicted murderer, Lana Clayton.
ROSIE CLAYTON-LESLIE: There was a lot of pain and at the same time, there was a feeling of such betrayal
that I could have trusted somebody with the life of someone so dear to me. It was a ruse.
The fact that she was a person trained in life savings, she used her training to cause another person harm.
She stole him from me. And my heart pities, the agony that she must have to face.
Not just in this world, but in whatever world is to come. [dramatic music] But from my own brother, I learned to forgive.
And I think that that's the only place that I've been able to find peace. [dramatic music]
Steve is going to be remembered by everyone who loved him for his joy and his laughter.
Steve wasn't happy unless he was making someone else happy. And that joy is my brother's greatest legacy.
The joy that he brought to so many people, and all of them think about him and pay that forward.
[dramatic music] [theme music]

The mysterious case of millionaire Steven Clayton, who is found dead at the foot of a staircase in the luxury mansion he shares with his wife, Lana.

Pushed to Death tells the stories of people who tragically passed away after appearing to suffer a fatal fall in suspicious circumstances.

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Brief Summary

Steven Clayton's death was ruled a murder after toxicology revealed poisoning by his wife, Lana Clayton, who received a 25-year sentence.

Key points

A Fatal Fall. A life taken in a heartbeat raises questions of natural causes versus murder.
Steven's Vibrant Life. Steven Clayton was a gregarious personality who inspired many, but his life had its struggles.
Suspicious Circumstances. Lana's denial of Steven's will raises red flags for his family after his death.
Toxicology Report Shocker. The toxicology report reveals a lethal substance in Steven's system, raising suspicions.
Toxicology Report Reveals Murder. A shocking toxicology report reveals Steven Clayton was poisoned with tetrahydrozoline, leading to murder charges against his wife.
Lana's Admission. Lana Clayton admits to administering Visine to her husband, sealing her fate in the investigation.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was not news that I was prepared to hear.

Rosie reflects on the shocking news of her brother's passing.

0:33WatchJan 31, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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