S.C. nurse who fatally poisoned husband with eye drops: "I just wanted him to suffer"

[This story originally aired on March 22, 2022.] JAMES BLACKLEDGE: Is this 911? TERRY FLOYD [BODY CAM VIDEO]: She's kind of on a guilt trip about not checking on him. LANA'S FRIEND [BODY CAM VIDEO]: You can't blame yourself for any of this. NICK FRENCH [BODY CAM VIDEO]: I would do that Aunt Lana. There is tetrahydrozoline in the victim's drink. DEPUTY CORONER [interrogation]: We've got a couple questions. Let's go over some things, like I said we got some of the reports back. LANA CLAYTON: Somebody, somebody one time told him Visine would help him go to the bathroom … He put like two drops in his coffee and um, make him go to the bathroom. SABRINA GAST: Um, let's go over the toxicology … there's a drug called tetrahydrozoline. OFFICER 1: I'm a detective with the York County Sheriff's Office.  LANA CLAYTON: I'm wondering if he tried to commit suicide. … He had a mood disorder. … I always walked on eggshells. I didn't know what Steven I was gonna come home to … or if he was angry. You know he could be really nasty, you know. LANA CLAYTON: I feel I'm painting a bad picture of him. He wasn't, you know, a monster. OFFICER 1: Right now, the death is suspicious in nature. LANA CLAYTON: I feel like you guys are, you know, doing your job and you're, you know, wondering if I killed my husband and I did not kill my husband. LANA CLAYTON: You know, I had this little table set up next to the bed with his tissues, his urinal, his, you know, medications, his Visine … And I just saw it and just, I was just so angry. … I just took and squirted it. … I think I put the whole thing in. DETECTIVE: So, you — the whole bottle? LANA CLAYTON: Just — what if I did kill him? What if I caused his death with the Visine? LANA CLAYTON: I just wanted him to just — I just wanted him to suffer. LANA CLAYTON: I was just, I was just angry. … He was just constantly, "Lana, come here, Lana, come here" you know "help me to the bathroom," "do this," "do that" and everything … LANA CLAYTON: I just wanted him to have diarrhea. LANA CLAYTON: He was verbally and physically abusive. He had hit me several times.  LANA CLAYTON: I was trying to protect myself from him 'cause he was, you know, coming at me. … And I had picked up the crossbow and turned and I just shot it at him. LANA CLAYTON: I would like to apologize to Steven's family. LANA CLAYTON: I did impulsively put the Visine in Steven's drink and I did it with the intent to make him sick and uncomfortable. LANA CLAYTON: I was upset about the abuse and just wanted him to leave me alone. I never thought it would kill him. I had never heard of Visine being deadly. JUDGE BURCH: What a tangled web we weave, Miss Clayton you sure have tangled this one up.

Lana Clayton said she found her husband Steve Clayton dead at the bottom of a staircase in their South Carolina home. The businessman, who created physical therapy clinics, had been married to his wife for five years when he died. 911 DISPATCHER: It is. OFFICER: Oh, no. SGT. DAY: Oh, no, not at all. She killed him with eye drops. DEPUTY CORONER: And how long had he been doing that for? LANA CLAYTON: That is his Visine. LANA CLAYTON: I'm just … OFFICER 2: What was nasty Steve like? OFFICER 2: Did you make his coffee for him? LANA CLAYTON: I think I did. DETECTIVE: And it all just built up? DETECTIVE: To just suffer?

Initially, the coroner's office ruled Clayton died from a possible heart attack. However, Clayton's nephew, Nick French, a police officer in a nearby town, noticed something was odd about Lana's behavior when he rushed to the mansion to console her. JAMES BLACKLEDGE: I was just ridin' by and a woman came running out and said her husband fell down the steps and she thinks he's dead. TERRY FLOYD: Just take a look to see if you see any signs of him falling or anything … Well it's not that far-fetched. LANA CLAYTON: For years. OFFICER 2: Overwhelmed, I'm sure. Yes, ma'am. Now listen you are by no means in any trouble, we do wanna ask you some questions. LANA CLAYTON: He was really verbally abusive, you know, call me names, stupid, bitch. LANA CLAYTON: No, he made his coffee. … everybody keeps asking me, you know, about the coffee and I know they wanted to know about the Visine. DETECTIVE: OK. LANA CLAYTON: It just all, all, all just built up and I just … LANA CLAYTON: I wanted him to just be, miserable.