True Crime with Kimbyr - The Only Witness Was Her 7 Year Old Daughter | The Kelley Clayton Case

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

35-year-old Kelley Clayton, a devoted mom of two, was found dead in her family home after her husband, former pro hockey player Thomas Clayton, returned from his weekly poker night. It appeared to be a home invasion by a masked intruder, but it became something far more disturbing when investigators turned to their only witness: the Claytons' 7-year-old daughter. What she told them would unravel a web of secrets, lies, and a plot no one saw coming.In this episode of True Crime with Kimbyr, we trace the full Kelley Clayton case and how the smallest voice cracked the biggest case.📣 WANT MORE TRUE CRIME? Check out my other podcast, DARKLIVITY: HERE

This is a story about love, a fairy tale type of love, and a beautiful family created by that love. It's about success and living out your wildest dreams, but it's also about all of that coming to an end on a fall night when a loving mother is in the right place at the wrong time. Today's video is going to be a sad one. Whenever there's a... Today's video is going to be a sad one. Whenever there's a family involved or children, it just makes it very difficult for someone like me anyway to tell these stories.

I want to start off by introducing you to Thomas Clayton. Thomas was born March 17th in 1978 in upstate New York. It's a really nice place to grow up, surrounded by rolling hills. It's also the Carousel Capital. of the world, which I thought was really interesting. It's the home to six of the last remaining hand-carved vintage carousels. Look at some of these. They're so beautiful, and there's also nature all around, including parks, and you can take a nice little stroll, nature preserves, hiking trails, and then there's a downtown area, and that's where the nightlife is. Huka bars,

dance club, breweries, and a lot of college students hang out in this area. As Thomas was growing up, He developed a passion for ice hockey. So right after he graduated from high school, he attended Niagara University playing for their ice hockey team, the Purple Eagles. Then the year that Thomas graduates from college, he gets recruited to Amira Jackals. They are a professional minor league ice hockey team based in Elmira, New York. It was also in the early 2000s when the Jackals were founded as a member of the United Hockey League. And this was an exciting time for Thomas and, of course, the city of Elmira. And Almira was even a smaller town. It had less than half of the amount of people living there than his hometown. And hockey was a pretty big thing there. There wasn't that much for people to do. And the local hockey fans were so excited to have a new team, especially when they have a local team to go out and support. And if ice hockey wasn't popular in Elmira, Thomas Clayton definitely was. He was a very likable guy, especially with the ladies, because he was cute. He was fun. He was

funny, he was charming, and he was a hockey player, and that helps. But he also had that bad boy appeal, and I'll tell you why, because hockey is known to be a pretty tough sport. And Thomas Clayton was a badass. Thomas was the team's instigator. Yes, this means that he's the one who starts fights on the ice, and he does it purposely. This is a strategy in hockey. And this is what the fans come to see. This is the excitement. If you've ever watched, watched ice hockey, there's fighting. You can punch someone, you can body check someone, threaten them with verbal threats, you can taunt them, chase after them, not to say that you won't get a penalty, depending upon the severity. But that's up to the referee. But when I say strategy,

well, the more excitement, the more ticket sales. But not only that, it can throw off your opponents, It can make them flustered and it can divert their attention off of the game, which in turn can make an opening for your team to score. So all this to say, the Tom was a very valuable player on his team and he got a lot of attention on and off the ice. Here's a little clip of Tom talking about it. You can get one of their top guys off the ice for two minutes, five minutes. It's a job done. There were many gorgeous women clamoring for his attention. That's a fact.

and he wasn't afraid to act a little crazy as well. I think that was just part of his personality. He had a loud personality, center of attention. There was actually a knight that I was reading about where he got on top of some tables at a bar and started his own Chippendale show, if you know what I mean. He started to take off his clothes.

And there were some people there that were not very happy about it, specifically some police cadets. They were in the area for some training. they happened to be at this bar. They also acted like tough guys. So they were trying to pull him off the tables. And of course, whenever there's alcohol involved, you know what can happen. Being a badass hockey player, he was definitely able to put up a fight and I think all of them probably got kicked out of that bar. I just wanted to give you an idea of what you would see if you were around someone like Tom. When it comes to the ladies, he flirts. He's a player, not just a hockey player, but a charmer. He would just make girls

feel like they were the most important person in the room. That always makes someone feel really good. But a couple years into playing for the jackals, one night during the Christmas holiday in 2003, one lady caught Tom's eye. Her name was Kelly Elizabeth Stage. She and her mom Elizabeth and her sister Kim and one of her best friends, Andrea, who they referred to as Andy, went to the hockey game and they're sitting in the stands, they're watching a game, they're excited. And you know the hockey players wear a mess. So yes, they're They can see their bodies with all these pads on, but they kind of all look the same. But then this one guy, he gets slammed up against the plexiglass, and they're looking, and then they look at each other.

And him and his opponent are kind of wrestling on the plexiglass, and his helmet falls off. And as they're looking, totally engaged in what's going on, they're like, okay, he's cute. And at that moment, he looked up, and he locked eyes with Kelly. And it was love at first sight. And I really like these stories. They're like fairy tales. It reminds me of my love story. It's just sad that this one has to end in a nightmare.

Now, after the game concluded, Andrea and Kelly went out to a bar. Now, I don't know if it was a coincidence or if Kelly kind of planned this out, but they ran into Tom. And Andrea goes right up to him and she just plainly says, hey, are you dating anyone? And he was kind of cheeky.

And he's like, well, why do you want to know? Who's asking? She's like, it's not me. She said it's my friend over there. And he points to Kelly and Tom looks over and he's like, the blonde? She's unbelievable. Look at her. I'm pretty sure that most of us, if not all of us, can agree that it probably wasn't the first time that Kelly had been complimented.

But it wasn't just her looks. She had a bubbly personality. She was always smiling, cracking jokes. She was very vivacious. She had the energy that kind of matched Tom. Maybe not a player like he was. but the personality that draws a lot of attention. And there's a lot I want to tell you about Kelly

because I feel like through all of my research, I really got to know her, as though I was meeting her for the first time as a friend and learning all about who she was and where she came from and what her friends thought of her and how she met her soulmate Thomas Clayton. And ultimately, what happened to bring me here today

to tell you this story? Kelly Elizabeth Stage was born August 1st, in Elmira, New York. She was born to Father Howard and Mother Elizabeth Stage. Just like Tom, Kelly grew up doing sports. She was a cheerleader. She was athletic. Her family was also pretty well known in their town because her dad, Howard, was the fire chief in West Elmira for many years. Like I said, this is a small town. It's in the Finger Lakes region of New York State and it's absolutely gorgeous. You have all the seasons, especially fall with the beautiful colors. I absolutely love fall and it's coming up very excited for that. Kelly also played softball and she enjoyed being

very active and not only that, Kelly attended Elmira Free Academy, which is a junior high school and she was an exceptional student. She worked hard because she wanted to be a teacher and Kelly also had an older sister who was 10 years older than her and her name is Kim and she had a brother Lenny. She loved fashion and music and she would attend the country music festival in Nashville, Tennessee with her close friends and that was a trip she loved to go on but her happy place that was the beach with her family in ocean city new jersey i have lived in ocean city i love the boardwalk and all the people so i could definitely relate to kelly she was also sassy and very blunt but she would be the first person that would come to your aid and encourage you when you needed it it was her straightforward and

honest feedback and thoughts that people were really drawn to she did not sugar-com anything. If she didn't like you, you would know. And if she liked you, it would definitely show. Just looking at Kelly, I could tell when her friends described her that her smile and her laugh was infectious. I just, I imagine it's just radiating. And I can feel it through pictures. She also had the girl next door quality about her. She was a lot of fun, but you could also kind of take her home to meet your parents. Kelly ended up attending State University of New York and working as a teacher after she graduated. But I told you, Kelly had this fun-loving personality.

As much as she loved teaching, she decided to give that up and trade it in for the excitement and the bright lights of Las Vegas. That is quite the polar opposite of where she was in life. But sometimes when you're in your 20s, you make decisions because you think that, do you know what? You only live once. And that's a really sad fact for all of us, but especially when one of us is taken too soon. Kelly became a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas and she worked at the Imperial Palace.

This was a hotel and casino and it was on the strip in Las Vegas. And if you've never been to a casino, the cocktail waitresses, they have to have a lot of energy. People go there to have the time of their lives. I mean, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas, you know, that whole thing. So you have to make it memorable. You have to make it fun. You have to have the personality that can deal with this fast-paced job. There's always something happening.

So Kelly's personality was perfect. When she told her family that she was moving to Vegas, they were sad, especially her sister Kim, because they were very close. Even with the age difference, she didn't want her to leave and move to Vegas. But she understood that's what Kelly really wanted, and she thought she was really brave. Kim gave her a little farewell in the driveway at their mom's house. They just hugged really tightly. And that day, she was off to start this new adventure. but she didn't stay there for long.

A lot of times you don't appreciate the beauty of your hometown how great it is. And Elmira was one of those places. However, I think a certain someone had to do with the reason why Kelly decided to move back. That's right. The night that Tom and her met, they started talking, and then they went out that weekend, and they really hit it off. I think by that time in life with Tom in the middle of his hockey career doing very well, maybe over his little bad boy stage in life and Kelly having experienced the teaching world the

night life excitement of living in Las Vegas they were both ready to settle down and it was just a couple years later in 2006 that Tom and Kelly got married she was 26 and Tom was 28. Kelly was a hockey wife she loved it she did not miss any of Tom's games she was there cheering him on and she was happy to be Tom's wife after Kelly and Tom were married they lived in North Carolina for a little while before moving to Cato, New York. If you thought that the other towns I talked about were small, this one was very, very small, a rural area. The population in 2010 was only like 2,000 people, just to give you an idea. Very close-knit community, but very spread out. Here it is on Google Maps, and I didn't even see any houses. When I was looking at Google Maps,

I saw a church, a cemetery, a forest, a farm, rolling hills, but as I got close to, I did start to see some homes, but they were really spread out. These are not the kind of neighbors that are right next door. You got to go a little ways to get to your neighbor's house. You have to drive. And some people really like that. I mean, I can tell you I've lived in places where I could hear the neighbors every move. So it's nice to be in a nice, quiet little area, very quaint little town like this. A lot of us, including myself, wouldn't really feel comfortable in the middle of nowhere. At this point in Tom's life, he might have been looking for all that. He had some really terrible events happen, including retiring from his hockey career. It was because of an accident he had with his leg, and that's never easy. Having to quit something that you're completely passionate about, something that you identify with, and is part of your core identity, and of course, financially, knowing that you're not going to bring in the same salary. That can have a profound effect on your life, and that's probably why they decided to move somewhere like this, where the cost of living was very, very low. But they had a gorgeous house. I'm going to show it to you. It's pretty much a house

in the middle of the woods, very secluded with beautiful surroundings. This town is in Steuben County. It's a gorgeous four-bedroom, three-bath home, lots of beautiful windows that bring in the natural lighting. And I just want to show you this house. I do this in a lot of videos when I can find real estate websites that showcase the house. And I checked. A lot of the rooms look exactly. And I checked. A lot of the rooms look exactly the same as when this couple lived there. I feel like showing the home gives us a very accurate picture of what it was like where Tom and Kelly spent most of their time. What it was like to be Kelly, to be this new wife and this beautiful house and they really did have it all. I loved this big beautiful kitchen. That's what stood out to me because I could just imagine Kelly making

delicious meals in there. Here are some of the other portions of the house. We have this long hallway here, it's in the master bedroom, and they've got this big living room area, sliding glass doors, and you can see just how these stairs go up there, and there's this little loft at the top, and bedrooms upstairs. Look at the backyard, this beautiful pond, lots of trees. Sometimes this is people's thing. I wouldn't want to live there, like I said, but I really like living in a town where everything is close by. Even Kelly's family and friends would kind of say, like, why do you want to live out in the woods. They didn't think it was that safe. Because we want to be close to our loved ones. We want to know that they're safe. It's not as though living in the woods is intrinsically unsafe.

It's just that if you were to scream, no one would hear you. It's that kind of place. It's in the middle of nowhere. And these homes are not easy to find. They're tucked away. They're separated. If anything happens, it's probably going to take a little while for someone to get there. But this is where they called home. They still had a lot of friends back in town, but they also made friends with their neighbors close by. They enjoyed doing what a lot of us like to do with our friends, hang out, have dinners, maybe some outings together, double dates. And funny enough, Kelly used to work in a casino, and Tom is really good and loves playing poker.

poker was perfect for Tom because he enjoyed success. He was a successful businessman at the time. He owned a few properties and he worked as the landlord for those and he was making really good money. That was one of his biggest goals. And maybe that's why he did gravitate to a professional sport in the first place. Maybe he thought that he could go into the major leagues and have a very lucrative career. Nonetheless, he was still living a very successful lifestyle.

He was really good at winning poker. Some people say he would never lose. He was rolling in a lot of cash all the time. And it made some of the people around him very uncomfortable. A lot of times he would be flashing cash around where other people could see it. It's really not a good idea. You never know who's looking. People can follow you.

People will do some very scary and evil things when money's involved. I mean, there was this one time that he showed one of his coworkers a bag full of about 50,000 to like $100,000 in cash. But someone like Tom who gambles and is around cash all the time, it becomes normal. They're desensitized to it. But other people did not feel the same way. He would be routinely carrying around thousands of dollars in cash in his truck because he would frequently be playing poker.

So that was commonplace for him. He had a longstanding poker night on Monday nights with a couple named Greg and Linda Miller. Linda was affectionately known as lucky, and Tom had the nickname Hockey Puck. Greg and Linda were very good friends with Kelly and Tom. The Millers lived about 15 to 20 minutes away from the Clayton's. Kelly still hung out and talked to her best friend Andrea all the time, and she became really close with a couple. She thought that Tom was a little bit obnoxious, but he was very sweet and generous.

He would always be bringing Kelly gifts and doing things for her. And Andrea was especially thankful because they had a mutual friend whose wife actually passed away in a very bad car accident. And Tom came forward and he insisted that they do a fundraiser. He was like a brother to Andrea. And everybody thought, you know, this couple really hit the jackpot. They were perfect for each other. Just a really happy couple. But their life is going to change in the blink of an eye when Kelly is in the right place at the wrong time.

you'll find out exactly what I mean by that as I go forward in the story. In 2008, just two years after they got married, Tom and Kelly welcomed a daughter, and they named her Charlie. And just three years later, they welcomed a son named Cullen. Charlie and Cullen are so adorable. Kelly spent so much time on them. And remember, she was a teacher. So they were exceptionally bright. Charlie was articulate. And she was lucky to have such an amazing mom and dad. and a little baby brother. Kelly was working at Woodhouse Stadium Grill in Corning for several years. After Tom had retired from hockey, he opened his own business called Paul Davis. This was a franchise. It was an emergency services company. They dealt with fire and water damage and it was a restoration firm.

With Tom working so much and managing his business and all the people who worked there and Kelly with waitressing, working and coming home with the kids. Now I want to jump to the night that everything changed for this family. It was Monday, September 28, 2015. It was a busy day at work and school for little Charlie. Kelly had her usual routine at home with the kids, while Tom did his routine Monday night poker game at the Miller's house. It wasn't unusual for Kelly to be alone with the kids, out in the middle of nowhere, in the woods. But what was weird is that night in particular.

She was on the phone with Andrea and she was acting different. She seemed really stressed out and usually she likes to stay out pretty late. But that night she just wanted to go to bed early and that was odd. She was kind of acting like I don't really want to talk on the phone. I just kind of want to go. Kelly never acted as though she was uncomfortable or scared to live where she did. But that night she just came off to Andrea as being exhausted. she'd had enough of chit-chatting, so they let each other go. Now back at the Miller's house,

the poker game was going on as usual. All the regular players were there. Greg had actually texted everyone earlier that morning making sure that they were all going to come and inviting their core group of friends who would always show up for these game nights. Everything was wrapping up around 1210 in the morning. That's pretty much the usual time that these games would conclude. But something unusual was happening that night. something that no one knew was happening as they sat there and they played poker and they laughed and they drank and they had a fun time. It was something evil, something terrifying, and something completely gruesome. And Tom was about to find out exactly what occurred in the worst possible way. Everyone was leaving within the next 10 to 15 minutes.

The Clayton's house, as I explained, was about 15 or 20 minutes away. Tom's driving home. He arrives home around 1230. Tom enters the house like he's probably done hundreds of times, but there's something different. There was a different feeling when he entered, and he sees his seven-year-old daughter Charlie running toward him. That was unusual, considering it was so late at night or early in the morning, 12 midnight. She runs up to him and she says, Daddy, a robber is in that. house. Can you imagine hearing that? Can you imagine your little girl racing up to you and telling you something like this? At first, you probably think it's a joke or she's playing around. And maybe she just needs to get back in bed, but it wasn't a joke. Tom is now frantically looking around, realizing that Charlie is completely serious, that there's a robber in the house. He's looking around and he gets to the kitchen. And that's when he realizes that something is very wrong. He sees his wife on the kitchen floor lifeless, half naked, and a pool of blood.

And that's when Tom finally calls 911. I actually have a portion of that call that I want to play for you. I will do my best to put the words up on the screen because I know it's hard to hear a lot of times. I'll go ahead and do that for you, but let's take a listen. And I just want to warn you, It's emotional. 9-1-1. Help me, help me. My wife, he's dead. Hurry.

Okay, she's stay on the line with me. How long has she been down? I don't know. I don't know. I just got home. From the sound of the 911 call, they dispatch officers and EMTs for what they think is some kind of medical situation. They didn't know at the time that there would be nothing for them to do for Kelly.

He doesn't know what to do. He grabs both of his children and he runs to the neighbor's house and it would be great. It's a neighbor was right next door, but his closest neighbor, he actually has to drive to. He's got to get his kids out of the house. So when he gets to his neighbor's house, he explains, Kelly's dead. This neighbor's name is Derek. And after he drops the kids off, probably with Derek's wife, he and Derek go back to the house. It was difficult for the officers to even find the Clayton's home.

As Deputy Dean Swan is coming up on the house, he just has this feeling. it cop intuition he just felt like it was more than a medical emergency he thought it was something worse something sinister and he was right there is body cam footage of the deputy coming onto the scene i want to tell you what the officers witnessed on the scene in the middle of the night at the clayton's home officer swan got out of his cruiser and approached the home and right away he saw a man coming towards him this is Derek. Swan asks him what is going on and Derek explains that he's the neighbor and that Tom had just gotten him out of bed and he says Tom is in the house and his wife is in there. When Swan enters the home, Tom is on his knees. He's rocking back and forth. He's bobbing up

and down, holding himself and sobbing. Swan asked him if there's anyone else in the house and Tom explained he dropped his kids off at the neighbors, but his wife is over there. and that's when he points to the kitchen area. And this is when my heart sank, watching this body cam footage, because the deputy walks to the kitchen and he gets to that island in the middle and he just stops.

And you can tell he does this because he is stunned by what he sees. On the floor to the left of the island in the middle of the hall, he sees Kelly. And you just hear him say, oh, oh, okay. Oh, oh, okay. It's obvious from the extent of her injuries that Kelly has been murdered, almost naked, on the floor, with her face beaten to the point she was not recognizable and there was blood everywhere on the ceiling, on the walls, pulling around her head.

And Swan immediately turns back towards Tom and he asked him, where were you when this went down? Tom is visibly shaken. He's sobbing and he's trying to explain that he was playing poker with some buddies. And when he came home, his daughter ran up to him and she says there was a robber in the house and that she saw the robber. Swan wants to remove Tom from the house immediately. He's in shock. He doesn't want him to see this. He doesn't want him to keep looking. He wants him to relax. But honestly, while watching this, I couldn't see how someone could do that, how they can expect Tom to calm. down and he couldn't he asked for water and swan says i'll go find you one but he keeps telling him you need to calm down he was kind of talking aggressively towards tom i don't know maybe that's just the way cops speak but i understand there's no reason for tom to keep being in proximity of his wife who is deceased on

the floor swan opens the door to his patrol car and he tells tom to take a seat take a breather Tom gets in, but he can't sit still. He gets out and then he paces and he gets back in and he drinks some water and he gets back out and it's just like this cycle. I know from doing so many of these cases and you probably do too, the husband is always the first suspect, the prime suspect. So poor Tom could have thought that he was being accused by the way that Swan was kind of aggressive with him, insisting that he gets into the patrol car. But the deputy knew to reassure him that he was not in trouble. And that's why he purposely left the car door open and said,

I'm leaving the door open. This is a procedure that they do. They're trained to do this because later they can be sued if someone was detained without cause. So he's making sure to let Tom know he's not detained. But they do need to talk to him. They need to do it now while everything he saw was fresh in his mind. The next procedure though is for officers to sweep the entire house and make sure the killer was not still inside. They have to go room to room and clear each and everyone. So Swan and his partner enter the home together. They go in to complete the sweep and to document everything they see. I think it's great that we now have body cams because you can forget what you saw or it can be in a different perspective. So it's good that we can actually see what the officers saw as they walk through. I recall watching the body cam footage over and over again in the Chris Watts-Shinnan Watts murder case. It was heartbreaking. And mostly because you see their home, their most part. precious possessions, how they lived, and knowing that that night, they didn't know it was going to be

their last. It was clear that Kelly had fought hard to survive. They cleared the kids' bedroom, but they did see some blood on the door. And Deputy Swan, he was a seasoned cop. So right away, he could see how he would imagine this crime occurring. He followed the blood trail from the master bedroom and he theorized this is where the attack began it went out the door down the long upstairs hallway there were pictures that were knocked off of the wall they were lying in the hallway he could tell that this was a result of a vicious fight there was blood on the children's bedroom door and the doorknop he followed the blood to the stairs there's a number of stairs that lead to a landing area and then the stairs make a turn to the left and oh my god did this remind me of

of the Watts home. And on the wall straight ahead going down those stairs was a huge hole in the drywall. And he concluded it looked as though Kelly had been pushed down the stairs, maybe as she was running away, and her head went right into the wall. And there were also some blood smears to the left of it, probably where she was bracing herself trying to regain her footing after that fall. There were so many marks on the wall to the left of the stairs, presumably blood. The trail went down further onto the living room floor and towards the area of the kitchen where Kelly was found.

And there were smear marks on the floor. And it looked as though she had been dragged to that area of the kitchen and just dropped there. Swan could tell that Kelly fought hard to save her life. But it was likely that she was also fighting really hard because she was trying to protect her children. The officers continued their search throughout the home. They went down to the basement. They didn't see any blood in any other place. And no one was inside the home. And they wondered, how could someone have gotten in here? There were no signs of force entry. It wasn't a robbery because nothing was taken. And what they mean by that is there were expensive things around the entire house. There was an expensive purse that was right on the stairs or the landing. None of the drawers and any of the dressers were open. Jewelry was still in the boxes. However, the garage offered a clue as to how the killer may have entered. There was a side door that led from outside into the garage, and that door was open. And then there was a door from the garage that led into the home, and that door was also open.

I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that the kids were inside while this was happening, especially as brutal as it was, to think that Charlie, the seven-year-old daughter, saw this intruder and was able to relay that to her father. It just breaks my heart, honestly. And the next part broke my heart even more. Kelly's family was notified. And that night, her big sister Kim and her husband Corey rush over. The screams that I heard on this body cam footage when she arrived on the scene sounded like an animal, it was primal. It was painful. It was a scream of disbelief and realization that her sister was gone forever. I'm not sure if you're even going to be able to hear them, but I'm going to play them anyway. She arrives and she keeps asking, where is my sister? Where's my sister? And you can hear her.

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but then she realizes that is not the case because an officer breaks the awful news to her and that's when you can hear her screaming. She's just wailing and pain and sadness and she's throwing up on the sidewalk. and even her husband is screaming. It's horrifying. Now this hurts too. It always does, but the family is not permitted anywhere near Kelly and it gets to me. I can understand you don't want the last vision of your loved one being that image. But imagine not ever being able to hug them for the last time. No matter what my loved one looked like, I'm telling you right now I wouldn't care. I would just want to touch them and hold them in those last moments and be able to say goodbye.

Maybe there was some life in them. I don't know, but I just know it would be very hard. All Kim could think about was her little sister lying on a cold floor alone, and I feel that. Immediately Kim thought, if they don't want me to see her, this had to be a brutal scene. Somebody came in here. They wanted to hurt Kelly, and they killed her. Her husband Corey is pacing back and forth and Andrea finally gets there. She's just watching Corey as he paced and his fists were just clenched.

And you must feel helpless. And as he did walk back and forth, he just kept repeating that something wasn't right. But they still had no idea exactly what happened or what condition Kelly was in. The authorities would not give the family any details and they wouldn't even let them speak to Tom. However, they did ask Kim if she had a current picture of Kelly and they wanted information for both Kelly's doctor and her dentist. And it was in that moment that Kim turns to her mother and says, oh my God, they must not be able to tell who she is. They probably can't even tell what she looks like because she's that injured. And that's horrific to think about.

Officers are trained to look towards the husband as the most likely suspect. And they are already zeroed in on him in the body cam footage. It catches the cop saying that they think it's Tom right away. And I get it. But at the same time, zeroing in so fast right away, it can create tunnel vision. And I know it's just the beginning. They have to check Tom over and they do. There's no blood on him whatsoever.

There's nothing on his hands. He's got no injuries. And as bad as this crime was and all the injuries to Kelly, there was no way. that there wouldn't be any blood or signs of injury on him, and he has an alibi, which he's already given to police. I'm wondering if he ended up domestic weather. She face planted. A boom.

Then he puts her on the kitchen. In her face, you can see how her face is beat in. Husband. I think he attacked her. He has no blood on him. I checked. I don't know. It's hard not to feel like you're a suspect when the cops are checking you over.

But I'm sure that most of us know. They have to. Or it could come back to get them. They have to be diligent. Tom also told them they can check anything they want. He has GPS on his car. His friends were there with him the whole night. It's also important for detectives to look into all theories, not just a domestic dispute.

So they have canines that are searching the entire home and they notice that they're on a trail of something. They're following assent and they lead the officers down to a pond that's in the in the back of the house. This team is working all through the night until the sun comes up. And at that point, they go to where the canines alerted and they skim the water. They don't find anything,

but they decide to go ahead and drain the whole thing. The Subben County Sheriff's Office was assigned to this case. This is the local Sheriff's Office, but they had a lot of different jurisdictions on the case as well. They needed all the help that they could get. They were coordinating, a massive investigation. The first person they bring in for an interview is Tom Clayton. At the same

time, detectives are banging on the door to the Miller's home. This was at 6 o'clock in the morning. Linda is woken up by the sounds and she wakes her husband up and she tells him, someone's at the door and you know how loud the authorities knock and they don't stop. The Miller's know right away, it can't be anything good to have someone banging like that on your door at this hour. And the first thing that's going through their minds is that it has something to do with their daughters, maybe a car accident or worse. But detectives let them know right away it has nothing to do with their family. It has to do with Tom's. Was that a relief to the Millers or was that just as worrisome since the Clayton's were close friends of theirs and they just saw Tom the night before. They asked the Millers if

they played poker with hockey buck Tom. And of course they said yes. He was here and, you know, he went home around 1215. And you think these detectives would be sensitive about the fact that the Miller's friend's wife had just been murdered, but they just blurted out. They said, well, you know, he went home and he found his wife Kelly murdered on the floor. Are cops always this insensitive? I don't know, but the Millers were in shock. I don't think anyone getting that type of news wouldn't be in shock. They were just looking at each other in disbelief.

Greg said, okay, well, it looks like you guys better come in. They knew they were going to have to talk to detectives, and they gave them every single detail of what happened during their poker night. Everything added up to what Tom said. The detectives asked them, do you know anyone that would want to harm Kelly or target this family? And they were like, no, these people have a normal life. They live in this beautiful area of New York. they have these wonderful children.

They couldn't think of one person that would want to do anything to them. And I hear this every time in cases. And I know it's protocol. They have to ask. I can't imagine someone saying, oh yeah, yeah, I know someone that wanted to do harm. But it does happen.

And it did in this case. And I'm going to tell you about that in just a moment. The Millers give detectives the name of every single person that was at their home that night playing poker. they interview every single one of them and they all corroborate Tom's story. So they need to move on from Tom for now. When he was interviewed, he kept repeating the same thing over and over again. He repeated exactly what the Miller said, that he can't think of one person that would want to harm Kelly or himself or his family. Once they determine that someone has a rock solid alibi,

it's time to turn their attention elsewhere. Now they're interviewing all of Tom and Kelly's family members one by one bringing them in asking them the same questions over and over again sometimes these interviews go for hours they do this because they want to break people down i don't always think this is a good thing because many times people will lie or admit to something they didn't do just to get out of these interviews after interviewing tom and kelly's family they're still not finding any leads in the investigation until one person comes forward and that is kelly's niece mollie she would was just 16 years old at the time. Apparently every summer, she would go work for Tom. At this point, Tom no longer own that franchise. He was a partner in another company called ServePro. Molly said that

any time she was working there and helping her uncle, he would warn her to stay away from one of the employees at ServePro, a man named Michael Beard. Now Michael Beard had known Tom and his family for quite some time. He started out working for Tom as a handyman. He would do things around the home, help them with moving furniture, cleaning, basic repairs around the Clayton's residence, chopping wood, that sort of thing. He had been there on a number of occasions throughout the years and gotten to know the family quite well. Molly said that she always felt uncomfortable around Michael, and she did as she was told, to stay away from him while she was working there. At some point, though, Tom hired Michael to work for the first company he owned Paul Davis,

and he must have trusted him or Michael did a really good job because he then hired him at serve pro. There's something that happened. Michael had just been fired on September 17th and Kelly was murdered on the 28th going into the 29th because it happened in the middle of the night. But it hadn't been that long between the time Michael was fired and Kelly's death. This is a small town. There are not a lot of jobs and Michael had to work his way up. So they started to think that this might be.

have been a disgruntled employee. He could have been really mad about getting fired. And this is another likely scenario. It does happen. People hold a grudge. They want to get revenge and that revenge can come in many forms. Sometimes it is harming someone's family. We hear that all the time. People will threaten to kill you and kill your family. Michael knew all about Tom's money. He was one of the people who saw Tom's poker winnings and duffel bags, even in Tom's truck. So if you just got fired, And you didn't know if you're ever going to find another job. Is it that unlikely that you would try to rob someone that you knew had money lying around? They thought that maybe he came into the house thinking that no one was home

or thinking that everyone would be sleeping, knowing Tom's schedule, knowing that Tom wouldn't be there that night. They work at the same place. They talk. I'm sure Michael knows Tom's schedule. He's at a poker game and he's got a lot of cash lying around. maybe this was the perfect night for Michael to come in that home and try to steal that money. Kelly probably woke up, saw him, put up a fight, and she ended up dead. Molly gives investigators Michael's contact information, and at this point, they do call in New York State Police because they need assistance. Detectives had to look into every one of the employees that serve pro, everyone that worked at Paul Davis, they're interviewing every single person that knew Michael. They come to find out, nobody had anything that bad to say about Michael.

They considered him a really good employee. He was respected by his coworkers. He did a great job. But recently, there was information provided about Michael drinking on the jobs and not just drinking a little bit, drinking a lot and stealing. So it seemed like there was no other choice but for Tom to fire him because you can't put up with that kind of behavior. If you do, then other employees are going to think it's okay. and there were a lot of complaints that were being made about Michael. Tom had to follow through, according to the employees that serve pro,

and that's completely understandable. But most likely this was also probably difficult for Tom since he was so close to Michael. This is the most viable lead that the investigators have. So they go and they knock on Michael's door. And he is completely cooperative. He's nice. He's polite. He's respectful. They basically just ask him, do you know why we're here? and he does know. They ask him to go down to the station and he says, okay, sure, let me just tell my

wife what's going on and then let's go. They asked him the same questions. They ask everyone, where were you on the night of the crime? And do you know anyone that would want to hurt Kelly and did you hurt Kelly? Michael explained that he was home and that his wife was there and she could vouch for his whereabouts, but he did leave. He left to go on a beer run at one point in the night. and that was important because when you go somewhere there is bound to be a record of it whether it's cameras or receipts it was a convenience store that michael frequented he said that the clerk that was working knew him and could vouch that he was there as well they asked him if he knew anything about what happened to kelly and he says no they asked him about tom and he says yeah i've been working

for tom for a long time they then went on to inquire about whether he had any hard feelings about getting fired and that's when Michael said well Tom didn't fire me it was his partner Brian Lang to the contrary of what employees said Michael told them that Tom had always been very kind to him and when he found out that Michael had been fired he was helping him to try to find another job and not only that Michael didn't have a vehicle to get around to go to job interviews so Tom bought him a bicycle. There was no bad blood between Tom and Michael. So they're trying to figure out where to go next with this investigation. They pretty much have to cross Michael off of their list for now and move on. Once again, it is in their best interest not to spend too much time on one suspect or person of interest

because that's all they have. Time. Time is of the essence. The killer could be long gone, but this was just within the first couple days of the crime being committed. However, the story changes a little bit when Kelly's sister comes forward because after she heard that Michael Beard was being interviewed in a person of interest due to the fact that Kelly's niece came forward, she says that Michael Beard was someone that Kelly felt very uncomfortable around. She told her on different occasions when Michael was around doing things at the house that she felt very uneasy with him there and she tried to avoid him and then she wouldn't ever want to be there alone. I don't know why Tom would warn his niece about Michael and to stay away from him.

if they were such good friends and why Tom's wife would be uneasy around Michael. If that was the case, why would Tom keep bringing him around? As a matter of fact, Kelly was very nice to Michael. She gave him all of her daughter Charlie's hand-me-down clothing so that he could give them to his own daughter. Even with all this information, they have nothing concrete to really go on. So again, they move on. However, they do take a DNA swab, which Michael gives them willingly. and they asked for permission to get a copy of his phone records. Things are about to change direction. Or I should say go back in the direction they were going in from the beginning. The detectives were looking back at Tom. Even though he had this really tight alibi, his GPS proved he was

where he said he was. He didn't have blood on his clothing. There was no injuries on him, nothing. there was one witness who put Tom in the house at the time of the crime. And that was the most unlikely type of witness, a child. And not just any child, Tom's seven-year-old daughter, Charlie. Can you imagine for a moment, this little girl witnessing the entire thing, she saw her mother being brutally killed and now investigators have no other choice. This is an eyewitness to a crime. They have to bring her in for questioning.

Of course, they have a guardian ad litem. This is a person who's there to protect the child because she's underage. They want to make sure that she's not coaxed or manipulated or hurt. They can't bring in family members. She has to be in there with authorities. But at the same time, they have this person there to protect her. Don't worry. They don't question children in the same cold 10 by 10 room in the police station.

no, they bring them in. You might have seen this before. To a nice, cozy little room. It has toys and couches. It makes them feel like they're at home. And they're gentle with children. They're trained to do this. However, like I told you before, Kelly, she was a teacher.

And she instilled a lot of knowledge, a lot of wisdom into her children. At such a young age, officers cannot believe how articulate this little girl was and how poised and composed she. she was for a child that just witnessed something that she did in the back of my mind I was thinking about when my daughter was that age and I thought to myself there is no way that this little girl could possibly understand exactly what just went on I knew that this was going to be really hard for me to relate to you because anytime there's a child involved it hurts they shouldn't have to go through this they're innocent and their innocence is robbed from them, especially when she has to tell detectives moment by moment what happened to her mother.

And that's exactly what she did. And not only that, I have this interview. And I thought about whether or not to play it for you or just tell you what was said, and I'm going to do both. I don't have the whole thing. I've read the transcripts, so I know exactly what Charlie told the investigators, but I am going to play portions so you can hear this little girl's voice and her demeanor the way that she was able to explain in such great detail her little mind and her eyes capturing everything like a movie and having to relive it it's unbelievable but so very important because she gives them valuable information i'm also going to tell you what charlie said because she is a minor and i don't know if i'm allowed to share as far as the video is concerned so i will be telling you

what was gathered as evidence in this interview with her. The first thing the detectives do is ask Charlie whether she understands the difference between a truth and a lie. This is important to them to establish that she understands right from wrong and that there are consequences to her not telling the truth and being deceitful. Children at this age and not on purpose, they tend to use their imagination and they can fill in the blanks with things that are not truth. because they're used to hearing stories and reading books, and they have a wild imagination.

So they want to really make sure that Charlie is going to be as truthful as possible, so they asked her if she knows why they called her in, and she shakes her head no. They let her know that they want to talk to her about last night and what happened. Now at this point, she does not know that her mother is deceased. She tells them that the truth means that it really happened, and a lie is that it didn't happen. This little girl is so articulate, like I've said a couple times before. They asked her what would happen if she told a lie.

And Charlie says, you can get in trouble. She says in the middle of the night, this guy came in and started hitting my mom with like this pipe thingy. This guy came and started hitting my mom with like this pipe thing. The detectives asked her if she could tell them a little more about that. And she says, there was blood on the floor, there was blood everywhere on my door, on the floor, but not on the carpet though.

There was blood everywhere. On my door, on the floor, not on the carpet, though. The detectives want to know what she heard, and she said, like, my mom ran to the door screaming, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, run, Charlie, run. My mom ran to the door, screaming Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, Charlie. Those were actually the last words that she ever heard. heard from her mother. Charlie said, I saw the robber like hitting her until she was on the ground.

I saw the robber like hitting her until she was on the ground. And this part really hurt. She said she was sort of suffering. I just cannot imagine. She was sort of suffering. Then she said she tapped her with a hockey stick, then hugged her leg. I tapped her with the hockey stick. and I was just sitting there knowing what I saw in those crime scene videos and thinking about a little girl looking at her mother in a pool of blood with her face bludgeoned and holding on to her mother's leg. This little girl followed the intruder. She followed him knowing that he had just done this. She was able to follow him and know that he went out of the garage. She gave investigators that detail that he left the garage just as though they had suspected.

At that point, she ran to her little brother's room to protect him. Now you're going to hear about what Charlie said the intruder looked like. She told detectives that he was wearing jeans, a black long sleeve shirt, and a mask. He was wearing jeans, a black long sleeve shirt and a mask. When they specifically asked her what the robber looked like, She said, hmm, he looked like my daddy. They asked her, why did you say that? Why do you think he looked like your daddy?

And she said that it was the mask and his jeans. The mask that she's referring to is similar to the type of mask her dad wears when he's out hunting. He looked like my dad. How did he look like your dad? The mask in his jeans. So they asked her, was he a big man or was he a little man? and she literally says he's the size of my dad. Was he a big, big guy, or was he a little guy?

The size of my dad. Then the investigator said, well, is he fat like me or is he thin? And she said, just like daddy. So everything is being repeated just like daddy, just like daddy. And as a matter of fact, the investigators at some point said, how do you even know it's a man? She said, by his eyes. And when investigators pressed her about what about the eyes,

made her think it was a man, she said, because they look just like daddy's. That's pretty chilling information for this little girl to give to them. The detectives are thinking, how can Tom be at the poker game, but also be home inflicting these horrific injuries on his own wife in front of his child? And even Charlie says it. She says, Daddy couldn't have done it because then who would take care of us? and that's that's heart-wrenching she has the wherewithal and the thoughts to understand that if mommy wasn't around and daddy did this that she would lose both parents i mean how would she even know that

what i'm about to tell you is probably the most shocking thing i heard in this interview they asked her if the robber said anything to her she sits there for a moment she's quiet as though she's thinking about it and this seven-year-old is rocking her brain and she says he probably didn't say anything because what if it was my dad? We could recognize his voice. That is so unbelievable. If I were not saying anything that's what if it was my dad, he could recognize this voice. Absolutely unbelievable that she could think critically. She could think with reasoning about why he wouldn't have said a word. And at this point, investigators don't think she's lying at all. This is their most valuable witness and eyewitness. And this leads to Thomas Clayton.

being arrested for the murder of his wife, Kelly. This interview by his own child, they don't hesitate, and people are shocked. The family on both sides, Tom's family and Kelly's family, they're like, what do you mean? Tom would never have done this. They're shocked that he's been arrested. I thought about how in the world they would tell this little girl and her brother that their mom was gone forever, and I wondered if she would understand the gravity of it all. mom like where is she at we need to find that out for you what was death to a child at age they know that

their mommy is gone and maybe people explain that mommy's gone to heaven i know that's a popular one or that they just never see mommy again but these thoughts were going through my mind and now detectives have the job to dig even deeper into tom's life that's when they find out that michael beard is not just an employee, but Tom is actually his landlord. As I explained, Tom owns a few properties, residential buildings, and Michael and his wife, Holly, lived in one of them. There's still a lot of confusion around the town, even the media. They were thinking that the police are acting way too quickly. They just want to solve this crime. They're jumping to conclusions. There's nothing that shows that Tom was at the scene of the crime when it happened. Kelly's friends loved Tom. He was

part of their family. They just didn't understand how he could do. something like this and they wouldn't believe it. But they also had to think like a detective. They knew for the sake of Kelly and her children that they had to get out of their own heads and what they perceive as truth and start thinking like a cop. And that is what the Millers did. So Linda and Greg started to exchange information thoughts about that night while they had the poker game. And Linda says she thought something was a little odd. Greg said, yeah, you know, I did too. I didn't think Tom was acting like himself. He wasn't playing as many hands. He wasn't being funny or outgoing. He was just kind of quiet. And that doesn't mean that he's guilty of anything. He could

have just been tired that night. But then Linda brings something up to her husband. She says, oh my gosh, I just remembered. This is something that's never happened before. Tom asked Linda sometime in the night if he could borrow Linda's cell phone. Why would he need Linda's cell phone? He has his own phone. But without thinking twice, Linda said, sure, it's, it's on the charger and, you know, Tom followed her to the bedroom. She takes it off the charger and she gives it to Tom. He says, he has to make a business call. Linda wants to know who he called. It's kind of like you do become an armchair detective. I'm sure we've all been there, even when we listen to these cases in my videos. So she's thinking, it's a little strange. She goes through her phone on the call log,

but she doesn't find a number that's out of place that night. You know, she's scrolling through and it's just all the numbers she knows. She couldn't figure this out. She gives the phone to her husband. They're talking about and the husband says, well, you know, you can erase numbers. And she's like, what, you can erase numbers from your call log? She didn't know that they could be deleted. And this definitely raises some suspicion. But before they jump to conclusions, they go ahead and probably just go online, but they get her phone records and nevertheless, they look through them and sure enough, they find a call from Linda's phone to an unknown number at 10.53 p.m. Why would Tom delete this call? That is super suspicious. Now the red flags are flying and they report this to detectives. They're starting to really build a case against Tom at this point. They have to find out who this number belongs to. And meanwhile, remember Molly? Well, all of this is happening simultaneously and Molly is giving information to detectives. they're combing through all of the notes they took, trying to see if there was anything

suspicious relating to Tom. And she had told them that Tom started telling her things. And at first I was like, why in the world was Tom being so open about his relationship to a 16-year-old niece? But I had a clue that I figure out later in the case about why he might have been. And you might get the same impression after I tell you everything. Everything that was going on behind the scenes when it came to Tom's life. Tom's double life. He tells Molly he's not in love with Kelly anymore. And he adds this and it made

me very angry. He said that Kelly was really lazy and that he was already seeing other women and having sex with them. He's telling a 16 year old this. Then he says that they're getting close to a divorce. He just wants to be done with Kelly. This doesn't mean that he killed his wife, but it does give detectives a reason or a motive to why Tom would want Kelly out of his life. He also told Molly that he couldn't get a divorce because if he did, then he would lose everything. And what he means by everything is money. So now detectives have even more of a reason to go back and re-interview certain individuals. A lot of Tom's friends and family, they question them about whether any of this was true.

And he was. He was bragging about money. He was talking about his marriage. and similar stories started to emerge. Tom's friends and even his employees started to come forward with information about Tom's infidelity. There was definitely a completely different side to Thomas Clayton. Maybe his bad boy weighs, you know, they never left. Yes, he settled down.

And it looked like he lived a perfect, loving, beautiful life with his wife who genuinely loved him, may I add. She was still bragging about the love of her life. She had nothing bad to say, not even an inkling of her life. suspicion that her husband was leading this double life and I just wonder how these men are able to juggle all of this kids work wife girlfriend gifting things to their wives but also having dinners and probably gifting things to their girlfriends it just blows my mind but you know there was one of Kelly's friends they did mention that there was something in a conversation that went along the lines of what if he was cheating or you know what if he was doing something behind your

back and she said she didn't think he was but even if he was look at her life and that's something interesting i thought about that women would put up with this because maybe everything that they have maybe they don't want to lose anything a number of tom's friends and colleagues said that he complained about her all the time calling kelly ungrateful and lazy even saying that she's a bitch well this is still he said she said she said it's not concrete evidence but that's when they started to pull up text messages that they found on tom's phone and it's unbelievable but it's probably believable i guess tom was texting his wife these really loving messages sweet messages flirting you know being the nice perfect husband that everyone thinks he is but then he's also texting other women at the exact same time i don't know

how he keeps everything straight because i know i accidentally text the wrong person all the time but this was just days before Kelly's murder. And at this point, the detectives believe that there was some kind of dispute that happened between Tom and Kelly that night. Maybe she found text messages. Maybe there was a suspicion that he wasn't going to poker games. I'm not sure, they're not sure. But they really think that this was a dispute that went too far.

One of the detectives said that he thought during some kind of altercation, she either fell down the stairs or was pushed and after you know her head went into the wall things just escalated and then tom had to cover things up but there just wasn't enough evidence what really terrified me and makes me untrusting of anyone really but especially with people in a relationship is the fact that nobody had seen this couple fight he had never been aggressive towards his wife and by all accounts they had a strong marriage so i'm sitting here thinking can you imagine you're thinking you have this strong marriage with someone that you've never complained about, no suspicions, and then your life is ended? This woman's life was ended. However, they still have

no concrete evidence that actually points to Tom at this point. They have a lot of evidence that he was a sleaze ball and a scumbag and a cheater, but not that he murdered his wife. They have that number on Linda's phone and they matched it up to someone that they already interviewed. Michael Beard. Here's the thing. It could be completely explained away and plausible that Tom had to call his employee about a job. Maybe it wasn't something sinister. But the question is, why erase the number? But here's another thing to think about. What if Michael wanted to confirm where Tom would be? What if this was Michael's plan. And this call was just some kind of way of Michael diverting Tom's attention or talking about something with work so that he could get into their home and commit this crime. Detectives have all

these different theories running through their head and they need to bring Michael back in but put a lot more pressure on him. Detectives were thinking, okay, Charlie said that the person looked like her dad, but Michael doesn't look anything like her father. They're different heights, they're different weights and they have different skin tones. So maybe she was wrong about what she saw. Maybe it was the mask that threw her off. It was the type of mask her dad wore could be a popular mask. But now Michael comes back in and there's even more suspicion because when they asked him about the phone call, he denies he ever got a phone call. He gives this really weird explanation about why the number wasn't there or something. He said he had to recycle his minutes on his cell phone. And

I'm sorry, I'd never heard of anything like that before, and that was leading detectives to believe that there was something else going on. They have his wife in the next room being questioned by authorities. Something that Holly says makes sense to them and gives them a motive and a reason to what happened to Kelly. Holly says that her husband Michael told her that Tom offered him $10,000 to burn down Tom's house so that they could collect insurance money. These men work for a company that restores homes after fires and floods. They know a lot about insurance, but I mean, all of us kind of know that if we have insurance and something happens to our home, we're going to collect those funds. It makes sense because Michael was fired.

He needed money. He doesn't live a life anything like the lifestyle that Tom does. But is this the truth? Or was he trying to steal money that night? This is when they give him a policy. graph test and he fails miserably. They know that Kelly's time of death was within the time that Tom was at the Miller's playing the poker game. So this story and the theory is making sense to them that it was Michael. But if it was and he was supposed to set a fire, why was Kelly killed? Why was she bludgeon to death?

And why would he go over there with the intention of burning down the house when Tom's wife and children were inside. Will things get a little deeper? The investigators want to understand all of this, so they confront Michael about it, and he says, okay, it's true. I was promised $10,000 to burn that house down for insurance money. I even had a set of keys to the home, and I used them to enter the side door to the garage. He said that Tom had left gas containers in the garage, and he was supposed to use those as accelerant. After he says this, they arrest Michael right away. But they were going to question him more and more. That's for sure. He still hadn't admitted to the rest of what happened. Did he kill Kelly Clayton that night? They obviously know there was no fire. So what is the story? And I'm going to warn you

things get a little confusing here. I'm going to do my best to give you the timeline and all the information and try to keep it straight because there's information from employees and bosses. it made my head spin. I look through the timeline anywhere I could find it, whether it was transcripts or legal documents, and I'm going to try to the best of my ability to paint a picture of exactly what happened. The most important thing right now is for detectives

to make a connection between Michael and Tom, a connection or I should say conspiracy to harm Kelly. So they are grilling Michael, and he starts to become more, and more cooperative. He is just spilling everything. He says that he was expecting the house to be empty. Tom had said no one would be there, that the kids would be with family, that they would all be at the aunt's house that night. But the truth is, Tom knew that they would be home. And if that's the truth, if he really did tell Michael to do this while he knew his family was inside, that means

that he intended for all of his family members to be killed. He even told him. He even told him. He even Michael to make sure the fire spread outside the house to the family's vehicles, so he could collect insurance money on those two and wait. There was also some more insurance that Tom wanted to collect. That's right. You could probably guess. This man had increased Kelly's life insurance from a half a million dollars to one million dollars the year prior to her murder. I can just imagine, if this is true, I can just imagine Tom waiting around, just waiting. Just waiting. Because if he went ahead and had his wife killed her, killed his wife right after he increased the insurance, I'm sure they would have known that there was some kind of scheme going on. But is this really a scheme or is it a coincidence?

What's going on? This case seems cut and dry, but let me tell you, wait, because it's not. I want you to hear it all. In my last video, YouTube made me take out portions of my video. So that whole story couldn't be told the way I intended. and that made me angry. I had to comply, and they're holding my ad sense in escrow. I don't know if they're going to release it or not, but that's not the point.

Portions of my videos were removed, and they were portions about the trial. I think that is one of the most important parts of these cases. So this time, I'm going to be careful about the way I go about telling you what I found out about everything, the documentation, the transcripts, information from news stations about exactly what happened during this trial. who was charged what the outcome was and all of the evidence. At this point in the investigation, they now know Tom had a motive, money. He loves money.

His friends talk about how he flashes it around all the time. He's obsessed with it. And after his career was ended, that's where he put all of his energy into making money by gambling. And he would hide his money in a safe in the house, but the only people that had access was his mother and him, not Kelly. He didn't want Kelly to know. He didn't want Kelly to get a dime of it.

Because as he put it, she was lazy. Right. She was a working mother with two children, but she was lazy. Really? Because I have a lot of other adjectives to describe Kelly. We can all be called names. We're not perfect people. We can get irritated.

And I'm sure all of us have had our moments. where we could be called a bitch or an asshole or any other name in the book, probably not to Kelly's face. Because as far as her friends were concerned, she never had one fight with her husband of 10 years. But those moments don't define Kelly in my perspective because what I've learned about Kelly is that she's a beautiful person, she loved her children, and her husband.

And she fought for her children's lives in her last moments on this earth. On the other hand, if everything we know is true, Tom is evil. He's a coward. He's a douchebag who cheated on his wife for years and he's also a murderer. Maybe not with his own hands. With the hands of a man who trusted him who would do anything for him who stood by his side and had everything to gain because he was also trying to take care of his family. And he didn't have the means to like Tom. So let me continue because the truth starts to unravel. all the while Tom is saying he's innocent and that if anything happened it was Michael and Michael alone and he had no idea and nothing to do with what happened Michael said he went into the house and he was surprised as he was going upstairs to put the accelerant from the top to the bottom of the house

Kelly was not only there she was awake in the bedroom and he gets terrified let me tell you something. He had been drinking all night. And we're going to get into that in a moment, but he's not in his right mind. He's altered by a substance. I don't know if drugs were involved, but we know, and it's been proven that alcohol was, and he gets scared. And a fight ensues. And I know if someone came into my house, I would put up a fight. Who knows exactly how it started? He's wearing a mask. Kelly doesn't know who this is. And somehow it went too far, he says, because she was fighting back. and he was fighting her. And after the struggle, he left her there and he ran. He went back to the vehicle and he never set the house on fire like he was supposed to. And this is according to him.

Forensic evidence comes back and they confirm that Michael's DNA is on the door to the master bedroom. And that puts him there on the night of the crime. So now they know he's telling the truth. Michael killed Kelly Clayton. Well, detectives wanted to know more. Where's the murder weapon. What is the murder weapon? What's the story? How did it unfold? He says that the murder weapon was a yellow handle from a sledgehammer. They found a piece of it that matched the description inside the home. But where was the rest of it? It was a steel handle covered in fiberglass. If you're wondering, you know, how could this weapon inflict so much injury? Well, this thing is about over two and a half pounds. I looked one up on Amazon. You can buy them without the head.

of the axe, it was broken at another time and there was a witness, an employee who came to help Tom cut some wood. While they were doing that, this was in the past, the head of the axe broke. When Michael grabbed that handle, I don't know, he might have expected the axe had to be on there. Maybe he was going to actually chop into Kelly's body, which would have been even more terrible. But nevertheless, he tells police that that is the murder weapon and he has the roan it on the side of the road somewhere. He gave the cops specific directions about where they could locate the item and they do. Then he leads them to where he says he dumped his bloody clothing that night. It was a swamp just off the road that he was taking to go back home. They find

the bag and they get it out of the swampy area and inside were Michael's clothing. And forensics proved they had Kelly's blood all over them. Not only that. There was a creek. And that's where Michael said that he threw the set of keys that belonged to the Clayton's home. And guess who gave him those keys according to him, Tom Clayton, so that he could access the home without breaking in. And unbelievably, these police officers find those keys. All kinds of people are heading up this investigation. They had psychiatrists, psychologists, everyone's analyzing everything and anything. And they probably had to have these psychologists come in for these poor children. But they pretty much label Tom as a narcissist. They talk about how all he does is use people in his life to get what

he wants. They figured that he chose Michael for a lot of reasons because he knew Michael needed money. He also knew that he would be easily manipulated, especially because he would be easily manipulated, especially because he lost his job and he probably thought somehow Tom would protect him. I still want to remind you there's no direct evidence, no text messages, no written plan somewhere, no smoking gun that Tom really had anything to do with this. It could just all be made up that Michael is just composing this lie to get him off the hook and get his former boss in trouble. However, there was another person involved in this. I kind of can't help to feel bad for this guy.

his name is Mark Blanford. Now, when I say I feel bad, don't get me wrong, it's egregious. Either way, when you witness something, you know something, you suspect something, and you don't tell authorities, you're part of that scheme. But I do think he got caught up in something that he didn't realize was going to be as big as it was. He thought he was going on a beer run with his good old friend Michael. Michael said, hey, let's go, let's get some beer. let's go out drinking and Michael picks him up. Mark says that he drank like 12 to 14 tallboys. I

didn't even know what those were, so I looked it up. They are 16 ounce pint cans of beer. That's a lot of beer. As I said, these men were intoxicated. He says Michael picks him up in a red pickup truck in Elmira around 9.30 p.m. They stopped to get beer and then they drove out to Corny that is where the Clayton home is. Michael gets out. He gets something out of the bed of the truck and then he leaves towards the Clayton's residence. He's gone for about 15 minutes.

But when he comes back, he's sweating. He's panting. He's running towards a truck and he has like this stick object in his hand. He's holding it out the window as they drove and then he throws it. He takes off all his clothes, he puts them in a bag,

and he throws them off of a bridge into a body of water. Then he drives Mark back to Mark's house. When they get out, he starts to wipe down the inside of the truck. Now this timeline, the 930 hour and all that, it doesn't really add up. Not with everything and all the evidence they have of the call log and everything like that. They know that Kelly is still alive after 10. So the timeline is a little skewed, but Mark is drunk. He doesn't know what's going on. He's like eating food in the passenger side of the car. But they're also confused because of the red truck. Michael doesn't have a vehicle.

He has a bike that Tom gave him, remember? So did Tom really give him a bicycle because he felt bad about the fact that he had to go look for jobs? Or was it for another reason? They're about to find out. Let's go over the timeline that detectives put together. I want to tell you something really weird that happened in the days leading up to Kelly's murder. But first, let's go over what we know. It's Saturday, September 26th, just a couple days before the murder, and Tom is talking to his friend Luke,

who's also an employee at ServePro. Luke wants to borrow a four-wheeler. So around 8.19 a.m., he texts Kelly with something like, yes, it's Luke. Tom makes a call to Michael at 10.18 a.m. Then a few minutes later, at 1035 in the morning, Tom texts Luke regarding the four-wheeler. wheeler and he says you don't have to drive them back to my house because remember tom's house is all the way in the woods instead he tells him listen luke go ahead and get the four-wheeler today load it onto your red truck go and use it over the weekend and then on monday bring your truck and the four-wheeler

back to serve pro and we'll just switch vehicles you take my truck back and i take your red pickup truck with the four-wheeler on it back to my home and unload them. And then on Tuesday, we can exchange trucks again at work and it sounds like a plan, especially when you don't want to drive all the way out into the woods. So it sounds like Tom is doing his friend, Luke, a favor. But we know that Michael was driving the red truck at some point. The next phone call he makes is really suspicious. Tom then calls an acquaintance with the last name Strobel at 10.51 a.m. And he asked him, do you know if there's surveillance cameras outside the storage facility next to serve pro? Really, Tom? The friend says, I don't know. I can go check and get back to him. He goes,

oh, no, no, no, no, no, don't worry about it. Four minutes later, Tom calls Kelly. I don't know what the conversation was about, but only 10 minutes later, he gets back on the phone to Michael. So this is really interesting and suspicious. It's like he is making plans. He's like he's calling and checking with Kelly, then trying to make the plan with Luke and then going back to Michael. Or it could just be regular everyday business conversations. Who knows? There's another timeline and I want to go into really quick before we get into the weird things that happen, like I said, on September 28th the night of the crime. Remember how I said, we know that Kelly was still alive after the nine o'clock hour?

So the story that Mark gave didn't really add up, that's because she sent a text to her friend Abby at 10.21 p.m. That was the last time anyone communicated with her. And at 1053, that is when Tom uses Linda's phone at the poker game to call Michael and y'all. This call was only 21. seconds long. Detectives think this is the go call, like the let's do it, giving Michael the go. They talked for 20 seconds. Who talks to someone for only 20 seconds? This is starting to really come together, isn't it?

And you know what's even crazier? At 11.24 p.m., guess who turns off their phone? Michael, why is he turning off his phone? And at 1144, he turns it back on. But only for a few seconds. So what do you think it was about? Could that have been a phone call back to Tom saying it's taking care of? It's done. That's what detectives think. In less than an hour later at 1222 a.m., Tom leaves the Miller's home. By 1235, they're using GPS tracking to know these exact times. Tom is back at home. And at 1238. So like immediately after he gets home, not that much time to really investigate anything, he calls 911. And at 1241, he goes to his neighbor's Derek's house with the children. This is also the same time that Deputy Dean Swan is dispatched.

1242, Tom is still at Derek's. 1243, the ambulance is en route. 1245, Tom is back in route from Derek's to his house. Derek is with Tom. That's why we see him on the body cam footage when Deputy Swan pulls up. Okay, here are the weird events that occurred. And I hope you follow this. So on that Saturday morning, we know that Tom and Luke are in conversation about the four-wheeler.

Luke packs the four-wheeler onto his red truck and he drives off with it for the weekend. Now, within that conversation on the weekend, amongst the back and forth, and everything I just explained, you will remember the text message where Tom says, no, Luke, don't worry about it. You don't need to drive the four-wheeler back to my house in the woods. we can exchange vehicles. I take the red truck, the Dodge Ram, and you take the green serve pro business truck, and then we will swap on Tuesday.

Now remember the storage company that Tom was inquiring to a friend about whether they had surveillance cameras, well, they did, and on September 28th at 6.04 p.m., the red truck leaves the serve pro lot. This is that Monday. The Monday that Tom is going to do look of favor and drive the four-wheeler back home and then bring the truck back and they're going to do the little swap. That truck is followed by the green serve pro truck 30 seconds later. And this again is the night of the crime. This isn't the exchange that they make that comes later.

At 12.35 a.m. that red truck, it enters the serve pro parking lot. And then a man is seen leaving on a bike at 1259. That bike really did come in handy. So did Tom gift Michael that bike because he wanted Michael to find a job? Or did he give it to him for a job, for the job of killing his family? Did Tom really care about anyone? Did he care about his friend Luke driving out into the woods out of his way? Or did he want the red truck because he didn't want his own truck to be implicated in this crime

because it was a serve pro vehicle. It was very recognizable. And of course there's another reason. He doesn't want any DNA or blood or anything else on his own vehicle. He wants to pin it on someone else. Luke's mom comes to serve pro on the day after the murder on Tuesday to return Tom's serve pro truck. She turns it into Brian Lang, the owner of serve pro. And when she gets inside Luke's red truck, she notices that both of the seats are pushed all the way back, not just a little bit, not just for a tall person to drive. no they're all the way back as though someone was cleaning there's also half eaten food in the passenger seat and the gas tank is on empty looks like that truck went for quite a ride and someone tidied up a bit i guess there was just so much circumstantial evidence in this case it was unbelievable

like how would michael even get access to the keys of the red truck that truck was in tom's possession And this truck is also seen on the surveillance video at the convenience store. And that was the one that Mark and Michael went to to get some beers. Well, after Tom was arrested, he posted his $250,000 bail and he was out. And he would beg his friends to know that he was innocent. He did not do this. He wanted to continue to tell how innocent he was in his version of the story. And while he was out on bail, he returned to what he was doing before.

for gambling, going to all kinds of casinos. I don't know, maybe to get his mind off everything, or maybe because he really was obsessed with money. And he was addicted. And he runs into the Millers. And they saw him and they were scared. They didn't know what to do. They see him and he's like yelling, Linda, Linda, he's got his arms out like he wants to give her a hug. And there's Linda and she's just shocked. And he's like, I'm so sorry. I didn't do this. You have to know, I didn't do this.

It was terrifying for the Millers. He was just acting like nothing happened. Like it was just a drop in the bucket of his life. There was this other guy that he ended up talking to. And I think he owned or was involved with the arena where Tom used to play hockey. Well, Tom confronts this guy. He's like, why do you guys have a purple ribbon on the outside of the arena? because they had this big purple ribbon and lights and this was to honor Kelly.

It was known as a symbol for domestic crimes. This was all around the town. Everyone was putting up purple in memory of Kelly. And Tom was actually pressing him about why he would do it like, like, aren't you on my side? How dare you put up this, this purple ribbon? Never once did he talk about the death of his wife. He didn't mention anything like that to the same. man, months and months go by and Michael goes on trial first. But here's what's crazy. He takes it all back.

His whole confession, he recants it. And this is bad because he was supposed to be the star witness in Tom's trial. He says, yeah, it was my intention to go burn down the house because that's what I was told to do by Tom. But the thing is, I went there and Kelly was already dead. How does it? How does does that even make sense? He knew where the weapon was. He knew where the keys were. His bloody clothing was found. The blood, Kelly's blood was on it. So how does this even make sense? Nevertheless, he changes the version of events. He's not going to testify against Tom anymore. This was the person that they were going to use to implicate Tom. But the jury wasn't buying it. In November of 2016, Michael Beard was convicted of first and second degree murder. And he was,

was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. All the while, they continue to fully investigate Tom because they need more evidence. And he is just gallivanting around town, going in and out of the state with different women, spending all kinds of money, making new friends, acting like his family never existed. And you know what? Honestly, I don't want to keep bringing this up. But this reminded me so much of Chris Watts. It's disgusting.

Absolutely disgusting. He even kind of looks like Chris Watts. I don't know because both of them, they've just got this empty look about them. And I'm going to say one other thing. I want you to take a look at something. I'm going to put Chris Watts and I'm going to put Tom side by side, not just to examine what they look like compared to one another, but look at their shirts. Chris Watts on the night he got arrested is wearing a Carolina tar heels shirt. Look at the shirt Tom is wearing Carolina Panthers. I don't know why this just bothered me. They're wearing similar sports related shirts when they were arrested. Chris Watts arrested for killing his wife and his two children and this man Tom on trial for killing his wife. Tom's trial starts January

2017 and he's also on trial for first and second degree murder. There were 75 witnesses and hundreds of pieces of evidence. This trial went on for a whole seven weeks. There were very interesting testimony from those 75 witnesses. And obviously I cannot tell you every single thing that happened. I wouldn't even try. If you want to watch a video for me and you haven't done so already about a very extensive trial that happened very recently,

the Chandler-Halderson trial. I will link it below. It's an interesting thing. three-part series. But for this video, I just want to highlight a few things from the trial. Things I think would be interesting for us to talk about in the comment section. When Derek took the stand, his friend, he said before they entered Tom's home, he looked at him and he said, I'm just warning you, it's gruesome. That statement just caught Derek off guard. He also noticed that even though Tom was upset, he wasn't.

crying. Then Holly Beard, Michael's wife, took the stand. And she said that he left the house around 11 p.m. on his bike that Tom gave him and he returned somewhere around 1 o'clock in the morning. Oh, and then Tom, he made another phone call from someone else's phone, the day of the crime. It was at M&M Auto. He left his own phone in the car. They know this because of GPS. And he went inside and he called Michael from that business's phone. He really thought he was slick. Then there were a lot of women that testified about affairs. There were women coming forward that said that he had threesomes with them.

And there were women who said he whined and dined them from different states. There was this one woman that said she was having an affair with him in 2014. And he told her he wanted a divorce, but he couldn't because Kelly would take everything. And for some reason, this woman wanted to know what was wrong with Kelly? Like, was she cheating on you or something? And he said no. But he said, he wished that she would so that she would just leave. He even told this woman about increasing life insurance.

That's just disgusting. Oh, and if you thought that that's pretty disgusting, you know what's even worse? After Kelly's murder, Tom goes back into work at ServePro, and he is pulling up pictures and showing the women at his work, images of the crime scene. Are you serious right now? What is wrong with this person? Not only that, he is so smug when he's in the courtroom,

when he's coming in the courtroom, he's narcissistic, he's smiling. He doesn't have remorse. He doesn't even have sadness or concern. And from the looks of it, he certainly did not believe that he was going to be found guilty. Some of the women he was cheating with were married and one of them was 15 years old and that's why I told you there was a reason I believed he was sitting there talking to his niece, not his blood relative. Molly was Kelly's niece from Kelly's side of the family telling her he wasn't satisfied in the bedroom and that he was already having sex with other women. Why do you think he was doing that?

because this man actually thought he had a chance with her too. That wasn't the only person that he told that he wasn't satisfied in the bedroom. There was a friend of Cowles. And he was confiding in her, confiding in air quotes. No, he was trying to get down her pants because he said the same thing and then he tried to kiss her. Okay, so we know this guy is a sleaze ball. But still, they had to prove that this equaled a motive for murder. And the prosecution just said that this was all about.

Tom being selfish. He was sick of being married. He wanted to go back to his playboy lifestyle. Money was his motivation. And he didn't care who stood in his way because he was going to trample them and get rid of them, even if that meant it was his own family. I just don't understand why people can't get a divorce. They don't even know if they're going to have to give all the money to their wife. And that's a choice they made from the beginning. Why didn't he just get a prenuptial agreement? I don't know. That was his choice. alternative is that you risk going to prison and ruining your family, ruining so many people's lives. What kind of mindset do you have to be in?

Of course, Tom's defense attorney argued that Michael did this crime by himself. Nevertheless, it goes to the jury. After seven weeks in February of 2017, it only took six hours for the jury to find Thomas Clayton guilty of first-degree murder and second-degree murder for killing his wife, Kelly Clayton. The family was just shouting. They were screaming of happiness and joy. They're like, we got him. We got him. And they were just happy that justice was finally served.

In April of 2017, Thomas Clayton was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. What really put a nail in the coffin for Tom was the phone records. It showed that Michael and Tom were together at some points when they shouldn't have been. And they tracked their phones everywhere. The fact that they both turned off their phones at certain times and then turned them back on, They really thought that they had this conspiracy so perfectly planned and executed that no one was ever going to find out. Cell phones are the worst things that you can have if you're trying to commit a crime, even in the Chandler-Halderson case and so many others. Seems like nobody can leave their phone behind, not even when their life depends on it.

I want to know what you believe happened, but there's one last thing that I want to leave you with because I went on Facebook, book. And I was able to find some updates on what was going on in Kelly's children's lives. Little Charlie and Cullen, I'll have you know that if there's one happy thing that came out of this trial or this entire situation is that Kim, Kelly's sister, was awarded custody of her children. They are absolutely loved. They have been given everything that they could ever need. And I know that they'll never have their mom again, but they really do. you have the next best thing her blood relative, her own sister. I end up finding this video of Kim talking about an award that they're giving to this young girl in Kelly's honor. And I wanted to

play that for you. It is my honor to introduce the women standing with me. This is both mine and my sister Kelly's mother, Elizabeth. And this is Kelly's brave, beautiful daughter, Charlie Emma. My, my, My sister Kelly was a very ambitious woman. She was not afraid to take the steps needed to follow her dreams and to see them come to fruition. She was energetic, as is Charlie, happy, motivated, and a leader. Kelly was as bright as the sun. She loved to dance just as this year's recipient.

Kelly would encourage all others to be the best version of themselves. as do you. It is my understanding that this young woman receiving this award happens to also be the older sister to a younger sister. And she adores and protects. There is nothing like the love of a sister. Well in our hearts, the following was stated in your nomination. She is just a wonderful respectful, loving young woman. Well, in our hearts, so is my sister, her daughter, and her mother. With that being said, we are honored to continue Kelly's legacy

by presenting the Kelly Stage Memorial Scholarship to the first ever recipient is Emily Butler from Amher High School. The family said that poor Charlie has become an angry, and rightfully so. She's been through so much. You can only expect that there would be long-lasting mental health implications. And I just want you to know if someone's watching this from Kelly's family, my heart just sincerely goes out to you.

Sincerely. Oh, of course, Tom wasn't having any of this. He appeals, and so did Michael. And he makes this disgusting, harsh statement. He used all these cuss words, just saying that he's innocent. His dad made a statement too to the media crying and saying how proud he still was to be Tom's father. But what stuck out to me the most and was so heartbreaking is that Charlie wrote a letter on her own volition about how much she loved her mom and dad. But that her daddy was a coward because he made Michael kill her mommy.

In the end, Kim said in her own words, all Tom was was a white privileged man that used Michael because he knew that Michael would do just about anything for money for his own family. The Millers no longer play poker at their home, not since the night of Kelly's death. This is just another heartbreaking case of a family that was ripped apart by greed and evil by a monster that was walking among them. their own father and husband. I think these cases are unbelievable and I hope that we can learn something from each and every one of them and we can continue to honor the memory of people like Kelly Clayton. I want to thank you so very much for watching another one of my videos and I will see you in my next one.