At the time, Lana Clayton said she had accidentally shot her husband Stephen with the device as he slept.
The woman accused of fatally poisoning her husband with eye drops once shot him in the back of the head with a crossbow, officials have revealed.
Police have reopened an investigation into the bizarre incident at the home of millionaire Stephen Clayton and his 52-year-old wife, Lana, which occurred two years ago.
Lana Clayton told police she was having trouble loading a crossbow. She says that she took it into the bedroom where her husband was sleeping. She then claimed the device accidentally went off and a piece of the bow called “the bolt” struck him in the back of the head. He woke up screaming, but miraculously, he was not seriously hurt.
Crossbow expert Manny Circa told Inside Edition that if you keep the safety on the crossbow on, it won't go off.
Stephen Clayton told detectives he “did not believe she was trying to kill him," according to documents obtained by Inside Edition. The situation was later ruled an accident.
Cops say Lana Clayton has now confessed to murdering her husband by putting eye drops into his water. The chemical can be deadly if swallowed.
"Over several days it started shutting down his body," optometrist Dr. Elyse Briscoe told Inside Edition. "You can't breathe after a while. Your heart shuts down and you eventually go into a coma."
The couple lived in an enclave of million dollar homes on Lake Wylie, South Carolina. Stephen Clayton's funeral was held in the backyard before toxicology reports showed he had been poisoned.
Frank Keith and Ken Stanford were at the funeral.
Keith told Inside Edition she was "stoic" at the funeral.
Sanford added, "That's part of the mystery all of this is. He always appeared to be happy-go-lucky grateful for his success, grateful to be alive, grateful to be in the community and that's all the more reason that it's so stunning to us, I think."
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