Ep. 105-Eye Drops and Murder

We’re looking for listener submissions — true crime encounters, paranormal experiences, urban legends, or moments you just can't explain.

📜 When you submit, please include:
•Your name or an alias
•The type of story you’re sharing
•Your story in your own words
•Where and roughly when it happened (if you’re comfortable sharing)
•Whether you’d like identifying details changed
•Confirmation that we can read and record your story on the show
•Submissions can be anonymous. Every story is treated with care.

Send it to: holdmysweetteapodcast@gmail.com

A body at the bottom of the stairs. A panicked spouse waving down a passing motorcyclist. And a bedside table stocked with tissues, meds, and a tiny bottle that would change everything. We pull apart the strange, meticulous, and deeply unsettling case of Steve and Lana Clayton—where an everyday eye drop became the lever that tipped a “natural death” into a homicide.

We walk through the timeline that didn’t add up: three days of “vertigo,” a nurse who didn’t call 911, a missing phone, and a hard push for immediate cremation with no autopsy. When Steve’s family demanded answers, toxicology delivered them—flagging a compound commonly found in eye drops. From there, the story shifted fast. We revisit the chilling crossbow “accident” two years prior, the alleged isolation after a move to South Carolina, the dispute over Steve’s will, and a confession that started with “I just wanted him to suffer.”

Along the way, we dig into the science of eye drop poisoning: why small doses cause vomiting and diarrhea while larger or sustained ingestion can suppress breathing, slow heart rate, and prove fatal. We also examine how image and credentials can obscure danger, how financial incentives and isolation magnify risk, and why small inconsistencies—like a missing phone—can be the loudest alarm. The legal endgame left many divided: Lana’s plea to voluntary manslaughter and tampering netted 25 years, raising hard questions about premeditation and justice in poisoning cases.

If you’re drawn to cases where forensic toxicology, family intuition, and behavioral red flags collide, this one will grip you. Listen, then tell us: did the sentence fit the crime, and which detail first told you something was wrong? If you found this episode compelling, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who loves smart, layered true crime.

Transcript

Cold Open: Jokes And Pink Eye

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It happened in the library with the candlestick. Or did it? Maybe it happened in South Carolina with the eye drops. This is old my sweet face. I'm Pearl. And I'm still half asleep.

SPEAKER_03 0:51

I'm Holly. Do you need some visine? Maybe. My eyes are a little red, but not like pink eye red. No, no.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

That would be Chicken Voldemort's eyes. Which, by the way, he has double pink eye folks. Yeah. But is that like a HIPAA violation? No. Maybe. But he literally asked me the other day, he's like, are you using my name? Or are you still calling me Chicken Voldemort? He hasn't been listening, I see, huh? I said, both. Yeah. He said, I'm a little behind. And his daughters are like, yeah, we bug him every time we get in the car. Let's listen to Aunt Pearl's and Aunt Holly's podcast. Right. And so, yeah. So Joe, yes, we still call you Chicken Voldemort. It's way more fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:47

Yeah. With your double pink eye.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Double pink eye? Chicken Voldemort. Now that's his name.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

I'm sure he's heard all the pink eye jokes too.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yep. Yep. I told him to quit motorboating people's butt cracks. Yeah, that's gold right there. There's people at work who are joking about someone farting on his pillow or farting in his helmet or something. Just anything to that would cause.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

But is it a bacterial pink eye or a like what's the other one? I don't know. Because one of them you can get um, of course, bacteria from poo. Or pretty much. But there's also one for that's like uh you can catch from other people. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Yeah. Like a viral.

SPEAKER_03 2:37

Yeah, viral, contagious one.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Pink eye.

unknown 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I've had pink eye last.

SPEAKER_03 2:44

Well, it was oh my god. I think I was like a teenager when I had pink eye. That was the last time.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Yeah. I don't get I haven't had pink eye ever yet. Yeah, knock on some wood. But I've had a lot of styes.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Oh, yeah. I've never had a sty.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Those are annoying. Oh, I think. I think they're a little bit painful, especially on the top lid.

unknown 3:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

They're like big swollen lid with your eyelashes poking out of it.

SPEAKER_03 3:17

Did you use Visine? No. Well, you I I think, you know, your story here. I mean, after today.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

After today, y'all might see Visine a little different. See Visine. See Visine. I can't see without my Visine. You probably want to.

SPEAKER_03 3:38

Right. We're gonna open your eyes to the effects of Visine.

Setting The Stage: Visine Myths

SPEAKER_00 3:44

Truths about Visine. Right. Now you know in wedding crashers, they used Visine to induce um like that vomiting and diarrhea in homegirl's fiance. Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:00

So and it can in like a tiny little dose, but also you can use um what hydrogen peroxide because they use that for dogs to make them throw up if they have something, you know, give them a little cat bull.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Right. So it's obvious that you shouldn't ingest it. Right. I'm like, it's going in your eye, it's cool, but apparently anywhere else you're in trouble.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

Right. It's gonna hit your stomach and you're just gonna go, nope, and everything's gonna come right back up.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 4:29

Time's up.

Meet Lana And Steve Clayton

SPEAKER_00 4:31

But today we're gonna go to South Carolina and talk about South Carolinian visine. I love that. South Carolinians. We're gonna specifically talk about Lana and Steve Clayton. Okay. They met online in 2010, and they were married for five years before Steve dies. Oh. They only made it five years, huh? Only five years. Oof. And this was not either of them's first marriage. So they had both been married before. So this would be Lana's second time being married. I'm not sure if her ex is still alive or not. I didn't look into it that far. Right. But there's like an ongoing joke in Steve's family where they're like, Steve has been married so many times we've lost count.

SPEAKER_03 5:33

Oh gosh. Sounds like my two Sagittarius sisters. Sorry if you're listening.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Multiple times. Right. It's yeah. I mean, I sometimes sit here and joke. I mean, I know how many times my mom has been married, but I would mess with her about it all the time. I'd be like, how many times have you been married? Have you lost count yet? Can we count on our hands? No. You know, it's funny.

SPEAKER_03 5:59

But she's only been married a handful. I'm like, I was one and done after that. I'm like, nope, never again. Never again. I never have once. So here we are. We would make good spinsters in Bridgerton.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

Absolutely. Yes, we would. That's the life I want to live. That is the life I'm living.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

Right. Oh, absolutely like. Except you're not chaperoning your younger sister at her etiquette classes.

SPEAKER_03 6:26

And I do not promenade.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

So Lana was a nurse. And that was something that Steve's family like really liked about her. They felt like that meant, you know, if anything ever happened to Steve, he was in good hands. Like he'd be taken care of. She knows.

SPEAKER_03 6:45

She's a safe person, right? She's a nurse.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

Yes. But is she? Right. Steve was a businessman. I say businessman because most of like your Markle family stuff. Yes. Businessmen. He's a businessman. He started his career as an accountant, but then he opens a bunch of physical therapy clinics and becomes a big millionaire. Oh, okay. And retires by the time he's 40.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Well, go, Steve. No wonder you went through so many women.

Discovery At The Stairs

SPEAKER_00 7:22

I that's what I was about to say. Prenup. Yeah. So on the morning of July 21st in 2018, Steve would lay dead at the bottom of the staircase in his home. And Lana would be running around outside frantically asking for help from her neighbor, neighbors, and even a person that was driving by on a motorcycle.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Things like this give me Uncle Fester and Debbie vibes again.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

You're a nurse. What in the hell are you doing outside running around?

SPEAKER_03 8:08

Right.

Red Flags In Lana’s Behavior

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah. So that becomes a big red flag. We'll talk about that further in. But James Blackledge riding on his motorcycle, about to pass her house. She comes running out, waving her arms and yelling at him to please call 911. She's like, I think my husband is dead. She doesn't stop and talk to him. She keeps trucking across the street. Uh-huh. And so he's on the phone with dispatch and he's watching her continue to run across the street. And she's like banging on a screen door of one of her neighbor's houses. And Terry's close friend of the Claytons, of both of them. And Terry tells 48 Hours that quote, I asked her what was wrong, and she just kept saying, It's Steve, it's Steve over and over. So they go back across the street because I still don't know what's wrong, because she just keeps repeating, it's Steve, it's Steve, it's Steve, and crying. And they go back to the house, but she just kind of tells Terry he's at the bottom of the stairs in the foyer, like points in that direction. And the guy on the phone is watching this, like the whole thing while he's on the phone. And he's like saying, I don't know, it must have been an accident. He's he's like saying, you know, that he's telling dispatch that he's not sure if if he's dead or not. Right. But because he's not inside, she came out screaming, like just trying to tell him the whole thing. But she's saying he's like, she said to me she thinks he's dead, you know, whatever. So they're trying to get that cleared up. And while all that's happening, he's like telling 48 hours during an interview that he thought it was a little odd because the neighbor went into the house, but Lana stayed outside. And she's a nurse. Yes. He said she literally sat down on the front steps while Terry went inside and comes back out saying there's definitely no pulse. Steve is dead. And she's a nurse.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Yeah. Like even if she checked his pulse before she left the house and was all erratic and everything, which I I feel like if you were a nurse.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

You're gonna, I mean, you're gonna get the phone, you're gonna call 911, put it on speaker, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:06

And you're gonna be like, I'm doing chest compressions, I'm doing this, you know, all this stuff, because that's what you're trained to do. Yeah. And you're also trained to not freak out in that type of situation, even if it's your own family. Correct. Okay.

Vertigo Story And Timeline

SPEAKER_00 11:20

A little over-dramatization going on here. Okay. She is putting on the show for sure. WBTV initially covered all the stuff that was happening, and they reported that Lana had explained that Steve had actually been suffering with vertigo for about three days before he died. Oof, I've had vertigo. It's not fun. So he basically stayed in bed, was nauseated, dizzy, all that jazz the whole time. Those three days. Lana also told reporters that their bedroom was upstairs and that she last checked on Steve at about 11 o'clock that morning. She said he was sleeping, like totally out. And that before going outside to mow the lawn, she made sure that he had his medicine and water and anything else she could think that he would need upon waking, yeah, next to the bed. So that she didn't have to worry and she could go outside and take care of the lawn and then come back in. So that's what she does. She goes outside, mows the lawn, comes back in and discovers her 64-year-old husband dead at the bottom of the stairs. Is how she explains it. When police came and talked to neighbor Terry, the neighbor says that Lana felt guilty for not checking on him.

SPEAKER_03 13:13

So that made her run around all erratic and everything? Like that makes no sense.

SPEAKER_00 13:17

Right. So initially, you know, the when the deputy coroner arrives and they're checking out the scene and everything, they think they believe it's a natural death. And that maybe Steve had a heart attack. Yeah. So that's what they're going with in this moment. Steve has a nephew. His name is Nick French. We're just gonna call him French. And he's a police officer in a nearby town. So when he finds out what's going on, which he doesn't find out from Lana. Yeah. But when he finds out what's going on, he rushes to the scene and he's he's like, you know, everything here was really emotional, obviously. Yeah. And they're telling him, you know, it appears to be a natural death, blah, blah, blah. But he says for him, when he's looking at everything, there were some red flags. He said the fact that there were at least two phones in the home. Right. And Lana didn't use either one, yet instead ran outside for help. Why wasn't she calling 911? Why wasn't she administering CPR? Right. The same questions we literally just asked.

Family Suspicions Mount

SPEAKER_03 14:51

And I just want to say, like, I I don't know about other people, and I know other people react differently, but when I'm in a situation, like I don't feel guilt. That's not one of the things I would feel at all. That comes later when you're grieving, then guilt hits. Correct. I I go into like action mode. Action mode. Yes. And take care of what needs to be taken care of. And I get very, very rational. Like and hyper-focused. And hyper-focused. And I'm like, this is what I need to do. This is survival mode. That's what I go into. Now other people are different, and I know. Yeah. But there's no, it's all, you know, just very like action-oriented. Yeah, straightforward. I don't I don't panic in situations like that. Like I literally, my child, when he was five weeks old, I just got him home from the NICU and all that stuff, and he stopped breathing in the middle of the night because we didn't know he was having seizures. And I immediately went into like frozen action mode. There was nothing else. Like my brain was thinking of nothing else but like making my child survive and calling 911. And the entire way, as I'm riding in the front of the ambulance to the hospital, my phone was still clutched in my hand, and my fingers were like white knuckled.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:31

Because I didn't even realize that I was still holding it. But like I was gripping it so tight because that was the lifeline to the hospital that I knew immediately that I had to call to get my child help. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Everybody knows that you have to call, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 16:54

So and like you said before, she's trained. She is a trained nurse, and you are trained for these situations, even if it's your own family member, not to you would think that would like heighten that sense of need for care. Yeah. So just had to throw that in there.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yes. The other thing for French was that his Uncle Steve does not have like his phone is not on him. Yeah. And they have no idea where it is. They can't find his phone at all. And they're like, he was never without his phone. I mean, who is? Right. Everybody was what, 2018? Me, because I'll leave it on the table and go in another room and people get mad at me because that's the one. I do that too. I'm like, oh, I just charge it or something. And then I come back and I'm like, oh, two missed calls. Sorry.

SPEAKER_03 17:42

My bad.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

I walked away. Oh my God. So yeah. But I mean, basically, most people, they are changed their side. So it is weird when there's no phone. Then there was Lana's reaction to the deputy coroner asking her about funeral arrangements. So basically, you know, they're thinking natural death. They don't think anything is sus about this situation. So she's like, Do you know what funeral home you'd like him to go to? You know, normal questions. And initially, Lana's like, you know, covering her face and going, it's just, this is too much to handle right now. Blah, blah, blah. I'm freaking out. Right. Still crying her eyes out. I can't do this. Blah, blah, blah, whatever. Overreacting. So then the coroner says, It's fine. We can just take his body to the morgue and we can run some tests and just verify that this is indeed what happened.

SPEAKER_03 18:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Well, then. That's when she's like, oh shit. Then Lana's like immediately going, you know what? He can just go to this funeral home. It's like real close by. Um, we can just get him brought there and he can get cremated.

SPEAKER_03 19:06

No autopsy. It's fine.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

No toxicology.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

The jump from I don't know to cremation literally like triggers French. He's like, something's really messed up. Yeah. So he tells Lana, you know, it would actually be a really good idea to just let him go to the morgue and have some tests run.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

So we can know for sure what happened. You know, I mean, obviously, if he's having a heart attack, they want to know it was really a heart attack. More than just for like, was this homicide? It wasn't about that. It's like, right. Maybe nobody else in their family has ever had one before, so they want to be aware.

SPEAKER_03 19:54

And also they have to put on the death certificate like the cause of death.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

I mean, they could have wrote natural death. Right.

Crossbow Incident Revealed

SPEAKER_03 20:03

You could have fell on the stairs, natural death, whatever. But yeah, like, did he have a heart attack? Did he like was it the vertigo?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Right. And then he also me brings up Chris. Uncle Steve's a favorite.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

And he's like, you know, Chris would really like a chance to visit Uncle Steve too, I'm sure. Yeah. And immediately Lana's also like against that. And she's saying, I don't want him to see his uncle, his favorite uncle in this state. And French is like, he's a grown person. Right. He can make that decision as to whether or not he wants to come or not. You don't you don't have the right to take that from him. This is his family. Not to mention, y'all, Steve has a sister that still doesn't even know her brother's dead. Oh gosh. At this point. But French keeps pushing her about letting Chris come. And she literally yells at him. So he just kind of walks away and calls Chris. Yeah. And then Chris calls Steve's sister. Her name's Rosie. And Rosie would tell 48 hours that for the three days he supposedly had Vertigo before his death, she couldn't reach him. She kept trying to call, text, nothing. Nothing was being answered, no response whatsoever. And she thought that it was like super odd that he had never responded. And now suddenly he's dead. She's like, I'm having a hard time correlating vertigo and death. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

But also, like, okay, so I I've had vertigo. And for me, you really don't get dizzy where you're like wanting to fall down. It's like the entire room around you, like, spins. And like you literally stop in your tracks. And you're like, whoa, you know, like because the room is spinning. It's not like, oh, I'm so dizzy, I'm falling down, type, you know, spinning, and I fell down the stairs. So that doesn't make sense at all.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yeah. Everyone kept saying on the outside, they're a loving couple. You know, the normal thing you hear. Perfect. Oh, they're just the greatest little couple couple, yeah. They're in love. Well, everyone said that except their veterinarian.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Oh, got the veterinarian involved now.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

The vet tells 48 hours that that was all a facade. Their relationship was strained and strange, and that Lana actually wouldn't even speak if Steve was in the room.

SPEAKER_03 23:10

You know what? Lana is spelled backwards, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Anal.

unknown 23:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Every time you say Lana, I'm like anal.

Fight Over The Will And Cremation

unknown 23:19

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

But the vet also tells them about a strange incident that had left Lana in her bedroom holding a crossbow and her sleeping husband's head holding the arrow. She claimed it was an accident. And this was like two years before Steve had died. Now, his injury was minor from this situation. And Steve himself actually brushed it off as an accident. He like no chart, no charges were ever filed. Nothing ever came of it. He was like, oh yeah, yeah, it's a it's an accident. But bro, why do you have a crossbow in your bedroom?

SPEAKER_03 24:10

Right. What are you doing in the bedroom with a crossbow pointing it at your husband? That was attempt number one, probably. What the hell? And like, oh, it didn't get him. It's because she was just gonna be like, oh my god, it was an accident. It just went off. Right. Because I had an arrow in it.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Well, you would think if if stuff was so wrong that Lana would be the one, you know, expressing to other people that their marriage was bad and like this is going on or whatever, but not it wasn't. Steve was expressing that he wasn't happy and that his marriage was on the rocks and it just wasn't working out the way he thought it was going to. And he had confided all of this into his like to his nephew, Chris, the fave.

SPEAKER_03 24:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

So despite the fact that Lana did not want Chris to come, he he shows up anyway.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

And then she starts acting like, oh, she never said not to come. And she's like asking him to help her to get Steve's affairs in order and all of that. So he says, Okay, well, the first thing we need to do is find his will, and that way we can make sure we're we are following his wish, his wishes. Right. Like what he wanted done, whether that be cremation or burial. Right. Like we want to honor him and do what he asks. Well, Lana immediately is like, there's no will. And Chris's face is like twisted, and he's like, I know for a fact there's a will because he made me his is his executor. Oh. So then she gets angry, starts demanding there's no will, and makes them leave. Makes everyone leave.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Honey, that just made you even more guilty.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

Mm-hmm. Well, in the meantime, of all this stuff, like when she's talking to other people before Chris's arrival, French overhears her talking to other people in like the kitchen area, telling all these like big stories about Steve was using hardcore drugs and all this stuff, and she's like literally in there laughing about it. Oh my gosh. So these guys aren't talking to each other, but I feel like if they were at this point, they would realize, bro. Right. Like what's going on here? Individually, they both kind of come to the conclusion that Lana doesn't want an autopsy done, but they don't understand why. What is she afraid of?

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Go into prison.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Right. And French, like during the time that Lana and Nick are talking, is like upstairs in the bedroom where his uncle had died and or where his uncle had laid for three days.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

Sorry.

Autopsy Ordered In Secret

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Um, and he's like, the room is in disarray. It's disgusting. There's the mattress is literally urine soaked. Ew. And when he asks Lana about it, she's like, well, every time he has Vertigo, that that happens, he pees on himself. No, he pees the bed. No. But again, he's also sitting there going, How the hell did Vertigo become a heart attack? Right. So later, Chris and his wife offer to come back and help search for the will, which Lana still refusing. Like she tells him over the phone, it's my house, I'll do it, and she hangs up on him. She does make arrangements at that funeral home, and he's there and scheduled for uh uh cremation the following day.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

No, no, no.

Toxicology: Eye Drop Chemical

SPEAKER_00 28:13

So at this point, Chris and French actually get together and they both agree something is wrong, and both of them are like totally relieved they weren't the only ones. Like they were like, I thought I was just being crazy. Yeah. But obviously they confirm together something is wack-a-doodle here. And so they reach back out to the coroner's office, and they're like explaining, you know, we're in a rush, time is of the essence. We need you to order an autopsy. Like it has like we're demanding it. Right now, yeah. Right, right now. Go snatch that body up. So Lana has no idea that they're doing this. Right. And the deputy coroner agrees, goes and gets the body just in the nick of time, and they do the autopsy. The autopsy confirms it is not a heart attack. There's like literally nothing showing up in his autopsy at all. But they also did toxicology. Right. And that report tells a very, very different story. Of course. No hardcore drugs, like Lana tried to say, would be there. Only a chemical that would be found in eye drops. So now they confirm he died of poisoning. Yep. But was it an accidental OD or was it homicidal OD?

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Right. But why would he be purposely drinking Vizine?

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Yeah. So that's where we're we're going with this. So of course, then the deputy coroner throws this back to the sheriff's office and the FBI.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

They decide that they want to allow the deputy coroner to explain the findings to Lana, who never knew an autopsy was even happening. It was shh.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

Right. Like, why is this happening?

Lana’s Explanations Unravel

SPEAKER_00 30:24

So they call her in and she sits down with the deputy coroner. The FBI and the sheriff are in another room listening. Mm-hmm. And the coroner says, I have a few questions, because we found something weird. And she literally tells her that they find that chemical that's in Visine in his blood system. The crazy thing is, is she uses the chemical name and immediately Lana says, Oh, that's in his vi that's his Visine. Like she knew that that was eye drops chemical. And then she says, But he's been using it because someone had told him it would help him go to the bathroom. So the coroner's like, How often is he using this? And she's like, Oh, well, he puts it in his like two drops in his coffee every day so that he can guarantee he can go to the bathroom. Yeah. Instead of fiber, he puts bis and chemical in his coffee. And then she's like, Well, how long's he been doing that? And she's like, Oh, he's been doing that for years. He put it in there every morning so that he could have a bowel movement. And I mean, obviously, why would you want to do that? Why would you want to induce intense diarrhea every day? So to them, they're like, Oh, well, then she knew we were gonna find the mycine if we did this toxicology.

SPEAKER_03 32:08

She had a she had a comeback. There we go.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Right. So she's like, they were like, yeah, you know, like you could immediately tell that she recognized what we were talking about. Like it was oh yeah, yeah. And she's probably like, well, I'm a nurse, so I know. Right. Right. So one of the sheriff's office deputies decides they're just they're gonna go ahead and go in and also question her. And they they take the two officers go in together because why would you go in one? You need to be a good one. Right, good copy. Exactly, exactly. So they tell they tell her who they are, and she immediately starts to like try try to speak, and she's like, I'm just and the officer's like overwhelmed, I'm sure. Yeah, you know, like getting his good cop on. Uh-huh. And then he's like, you know, you're not in any trouble. We want to just ask some questions too. I mean, you're a witness in this case for us, so naturally, I'm gonna read you your rights because we have to do that with everyone before we ask questions. Right. No trouble. Just so you're aware, we're just gonna tell you these things because we have to legally before you answer questions with us. Literally, after they mirandize her, she starts saying that she's wondering if her husband tried to commit suicide with these eye drops. Starts telling them, oh, he had a mood disorder. I walked on eggshells, he was verbally abuse abusive to me. He always called me nasty things, told me I was a stupid bitch, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now she's abused.

SPEAKER_03 33:54

Right. Now she's abused. All of a sudden. But why would that make him want to kill himself?

The Confession: Visine In Water

SPEAKER_00 33:58

No one in his family ever saw any evidence of that. She never literally, never told anybody this stuff before. This is the first time that she's ever saying any of this. And then she's like backtracking a little bit, saying, Oh, I just feel so bad because I feel like I'm I'm making him out to be a monster, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like she's trying to get the pity thing. Well, then they were like, Well, the coffee he drank every day, did you make his coffee? And she's like, No, no, no. He made his own coffee. I didn't make his coffee for him. Everybody keeps asking me about the coffee. She's like, telling him, I know what you really want to know about is the Visine. Like, why are you offering this up if you were trying to look innocent, my friend? And so they like tell her again, you do realize there's only two people in your house, you and him. Right, that's it. That's it. And before the officer could even like ask another question, she's like, Well, he always had that visine on him. So then they're like, Well, did he have any the day that he died? And she's like, I don't know. And he's like, You would know the effects of this stuff, right? I mean, you're a nurse. And she's like, Sure. But I didn't think it would do anything that serious. Like, I didn't think it would kill you. And that he just like they keep pushing and she's just getting defensive. And she's like, I understand you guys are doing your job, but I just feel like you're thinking that I killed my husband, and I did not kill my husband. She decides she's not answering any more questions, like, this is it. I'm done, I'm going home. And that's kind of the pivotal point for them when they're like, hmm.

SPEAKER_03 36:04

Like, why why are you getting defensive and not answering the questions if you've done nothing wrong?

Motive, Isolation, And Money

SPEAKER_00 36:10

Yeah. So basically, she tells she had told already told investigators that she had a table set up next to the bed that it had his tissues, his little urinal pee thing, medications, and his visine. And his glass of water. And then she confesses she saw it, and she was just so angry that she took the bottle of visine and squirted the whole thing into his water. Wow. So they're like, the whole bottle. She's like, pretty sure. I squeezed it hard. And she's like, he was asleep, I guess, when I did it, because she did it when she was getting ready to go outside to the lawn. I saw it there, just did it. I don't have a reason, but I just did it. Wow. Yeah. So this was murder. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 37:32

And at this point, you probably could have just still fought it and but she's not a smart person, apparently.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

She's cool with talking to all these investigators in her house. She just didn't want to confess while she was at the at the sheriff's office, apparently. And she just like keeps talking. She's got like mouth diarrhea. And and she's like asking them things like, what if I did kill him? What if I caused his death with the visine? And now she's no longer the grieving, crying, frantic person with the dead husband. She's like this bitter psychopath. Yeah. And she literally tells him she just wanted him to suffer. She said that she was just fed up with his constant demands. Oh my gosh. What that means. I mean, apparently she's living my life. Lana, come here. Lana, help me this, help me that. Do this. Do that.

SPEAKER_03 38:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

You're not getting out the advising. I'm not getting out the visible. I'll tell him, get it yourself. Right. And I walk away. She's like, it just built up. I was mad. So you killed him? That's not what you do. You just walk away and leave. Then she says, Well, I didn't want to actually kill him. I just wanted him to suffer, you know, have diarrhea. I just wanted him to shit himself. Right. But like, are you really trying to get him to go, hey Lana, I need you to come clean this shit off of me? Right. I mean, because you've incapacitated this person at this point.

SPEAKER_03 39:29

But also, even doing that, even giving somebody like excessive amounts of X LAX or something is still against the wall. Right.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

You can't do that to somebody. And of course, now it's gone from not that she was just verbally abused, she's physically abused too. And hit her a bunch of times. And of course, they're like, is there any evidence? And she's like, did you file any reports?

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Did you get a restraining order?

Charges, Plea Deal, And Sentence

SPEAKER_00 39:58

No. And and Steve's sisters, like, the way she talked about him, like, I don't know that person she was talking about. Yeah. Nobody knows that person because Steve was not that person. So the fact that all of that doesn't ring true. And like even his exes from before Lana were like, no, that's not him at all.

SPEAKER_03 40:27

So but even if it was, that still doesn't give you a reason to murder him. Yeah. You know, I mean, there's a lot of worse situations where people are beat and abused, and they give me a big.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

I mean, you've got all your exes saying that's not true. You know, and they were saying like most of the most of his exes actually considered Steve to be like the love of their life. Like he was really great to them.

SPEAKER_03 40:57

Which I'm sure it's just a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 40:59

Doling out the cash. Right.

SPEAKER_03 41:03

One million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 41:06

But Atlanta's over there, you know, I was trying to protect myself. And the crossbow incident, she claims, is one of those times. I knew it. And it didn't go right. So she's like, crap. I was just trying to protect myself from him. Because he was coming at me. He was asleep in the bed. And you tried to kill him and it didn't work. And then you had to wait. I just picked it up and turned and shot him. Again, why was there a crossbow in your room? Right. No, you didn't got that sucker and brought it in there and shot him on purpose. You're dumb. So nobody believes that she was defending herself for anything. No. And looking back at the crossbow situation, all of them believe like that was the first time she attempted to kill him. Like that had to have been attempted murder.

SPEAKER_03 41:59

Yeah, when you said that, I was like, oh no, that was that was attempt number one at least. That we know of. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 42:10

After all the interrogation and her confession and all that, Lana actually tries to commit suicide. She took pills, turned on the gas in the house, and left notes that she felt bad about poisoning her husband. So she couldn't live with herself. And uh, I guess one of her neighbors found her like that and called the cops. So she was obviously taken to the hospital and treated briefly, and then she was arrested. So the thing with the eye drops, they say, is like if you consume enough of that, yeah, sure, you get the digestion issues like we talked about in wedding crashers in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

But it also causes causes like a respiratory depression. So basically, it's like everything slows down, it gets harder to breathe. And that's why he needed help. Right. And so they're thinking that maybe there was like a surge of adrenaline from panic because he realized something was happening to him. And so he tried to go get help, and that's why he was found at the bottom of the stairs.

SPEAKER_03 43:28

Like they think Or she was like, Oh, let me get you up and we're gonna go here, and then she pushed him down the stairs.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

Yeah, and then like they said, you know, he couldn't call because his phone was nowhere to be found. Right. And so it took a little over a month, but on August 31st, 2018, Lana was formally charged with murder. And you know. So they were like, I think she came up with like a million excuses as to why she had wanted her husband died in ways to uh make it happen. Whatever, but they also feel like maybe money was a motive. And the family actually thinks now that Lana had probably started planning his death in 2016 because she had convinced him to move from where his family was in North Carolina to South Carolina. So she's like separating him out. Right, like a true narcissist. All those things, saying, you know, it was super important for her to be there, and it's just like anything she could do to get him away from his family to to isolate him.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

Right.

Listener Stories And Closing Notes

SPEAKER_00 44:58

And obviously, you know, being married to a man with all that money, if there's no will in South Carolina, it all goes to her then.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

It all goes to the spouse. That's where she was like, there's no will. So that's Yeah, exactly. I was like, did his attorney not have a copy of his will or that's crazy, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

And they literally had found um stuff in her fire pit in the backyard that looked like burnt paper. Ah. And remember, she was doing yard work. So the fire pit was lit and smoldering when parents came. But there was like literal paper in the fire pit.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

That's paperwork.

SPEAKER_00 45:57

It's evidence.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

I'm gonna burn it. Nobody's gonna know.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

Right. And you know what's crazy is there's like other things that they feel like um could be copycat cases.

SPEAKER_03 46:18

Yeah, I've heard of other cases where Visine was used, and I thought that a certain that certain thing in Visine had been taken out or something, but I don't know if that's true today because this was like 2018, so that wasn't that long ago.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Right, it it really wasn't. So it's crazy. But um Lana ends up pleading guilty to tampering with food and drugs and voluntary manslaughter.

SPEAKER_03 46:54

So you went through all of that, made this elaborate lie, all this stuff, and she was like 25 years in prison. It was me. I did it.

SPEAKER_00 47:03

25 years in prison.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

I also tried to kill him with a crossbow two years ago.

SPEAKER_00 47:08

Right. Right. She might as well have just advanced. So, you know, sad little thing.

SPEAKER_03 47:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:18

Sad little thing. That a tiny little bottle of chemical can take you out.

SPEAKER_03 47:25

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 47:27

Sorry, that was so long. Yeah. No, we haven't had any real long ones in a while. So there was a lot. Yeah. It was important that you got it all.

SPEAKER_03 47:38

We needed all all of the facts and the evidence.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah, but that's crazy. Eventually confessing and going to jail is great. Yeah. But she only got 25 years, which I think is spooky. Yeah, for sure. She didn't even get like she pled guilty. Obviously, it was a plea deal because she I mean, she pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter instead of murder. But I mean, it was definitely premeditated. I don't understand why we gave her that, but whatever. If y'all feel like it's justice, it's it is what it is. I can't, I can't argue I'm not the judge or her jury as anything else, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

So here I sit with my own thoughts and opinions. Disappointed in sentencing as usual, right? So we will have and we'll also have another sweet tea after dark coming up. Yes, we do.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

Let's get those stories in. Bring them on. You get to hear mine this go round. But we are looking forward to sharing yours. That's right. That's right. So send those in to our email, hold my sweet tea podcast at gmail.com. Or message us on social media.

SPEAKER_03 49:00

And I've been making sure to put the little thing at the top of the show notes for every episode so that way you can see this is what you need to do. This is what you need to do. Give us. Yeah. Just it's just a little bit of information in your story, which I know all of you have something.

SPEAKER_00 49:15

Yes. You just have to be brave enough to let it out.

unknown 49:20

That's it.

SPEAKER_03 49:21

And I'm so glad I got to meet Carly's baby.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Oh my goodness, yeah. Thank you for letting us meet one of our friends and listeners.

SPEAKER_03 49:28

So cute. She loves our podcast.

SPEAKER_00 49:31

Yes. It was amazing. Yeah, we enjoyed the time for sure. He's a cutie pie.

SPEAKER_03 49:37

Yep. You know who also has a cutie pie? Patty Salzetta. That's right. We didn't get to see her, but she made our theme music. She did. And it's amazing theme music. Absolutely. So you guys send in those stories and we'll be looking forward to them so we can read them on the podcast. Like, how awesome would that be? And be like, oh my god, I'm. That's me. That's me, Jessica. So don't forget. And also, I hope everybody got to see Bad Bunny on the halftime show because it was amazing. I didn't watch it. I even got up and danced. I was like, do, do, do, do, do.

SPEAKER_00 50:22

Oh good then. I have no idea. I didn't watch a single thing that was Super Bowl and Super Bowl related at all. I literally went home, helped Drianna sort through her stuff from her baby shower and passed clean out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:39

It was the day. It was. As always, Hold My Sweet Tea is a drunken bee production. You guys remember to stay safe out there, lock up your visine. And just because we're dipping doesn't mean you can't keep sipping. Or dripping. Or dripping.