The Eye Drop Killer : Lana Sue Clayton

By Jessi Dill

An anthology of True Crime headlined by the story of Lana Sue Clayton... 

When Lana Sue Clayton's husband, Steven, was found dead July 21, 2018, in the foyer of his expansive South Carolina mansion, authorities initially assumed he'd died during a fall down the stairs. 

Everyone knew Steven adored his wife – even after she'd "accidentally" shot a crossbow at his head while he was asleep, none of their friends or neighbours suspected that the incident had been intentional. After Steven had survived the bizarre shooting with a fairly minor surface wound, he even managed to convince the local police investigating the incident that it was completely by accident, likely related the chronic sleeping disorder Lana Sue had been diagnosed with. 

And she'd played the role of grieving wife perfectly after her husband was found dead in the couple's lakefront home. She told investigators that for days before his death, Steven had been complaining about vertigo – dizziness, headaches, and nausea. Lana Sue, a 52 year old nurse who worked at the VA in nearby Charlotte, seemed devastated by the loss of her husband. 

Little did they know she had systematically killed the man she made vows to...with eye drops..

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trellis Publishing
• Release date: Jun 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201784324

Book preview

KILLER STRIPPER : THE TRUE STORY OF MECHELE HUGHES

JAMES MORRIS

Kent Leppink’s death

Kent Leppink was a commercial fisherman from a relatively comfortable background. He had lived several places in Alaska by the time he settled down in Anchorage, and shared a house with Mechele Hughes and another man named John Carlin III.

His body was left on a hiking trail near Hope, Alaska, an hour from Anchorage. He was discovered by utility workers making their way to a job. But perhaps because of the conditions on that remote hillside, or because of the carefulness of the murderers, no physical evidence was found that could have tied anybody to the crime.

What little evidence there was, and common sense, pointed towards Mechele and Carlin, but not enough to bring them to trial. Leppink’s death, however, was almost overshadowed by Mechele Hughes’ story: a stripper who had perhaps had her boyfriend murdered in cold blood, by her lover. The salacious story gripped headlines around the country when the case went to trial, a full decade after the crime.

The murder

Details of what happened on the day of Kent Leppink’s death are difficult to come by, and were only pieced together during the trial- which came after more than a decade of